"Uh, I had to impersonate him, sir." I looked around the room; how best to explain?

Lizard said quickly, "Captain Anderson is deceased. But the Captain Anderson identity was deliberately left active in the files so that Captain McCarthy could access it at will, without arousing suspicion."

Oh? I turned to look at Lizard, trying very hard not to reveal my surprise. That explained a lot.

"Captain Anderson was a friend of McCarthy's," Lizard was saying. "And, uh-this was one of his last requests, that we use his codes to provide McCarthy this cover." She was lying, it was a little too obvious, but it was a nice lie. I liked it. "As it happened, there were certain clearances that Captain McCarthy needed in the field and this was the best way to provide them."

"I guess I'd better explain the situation," I said, touching her arm gently. Lizard nodded, and let me take over. This was going to take some fancy tap-dancing, but it was the least I could do, considering what Lizard had just done for me.

"A renegade tribe attacked a small settlement called Family on the California coast," I said. "They killed some women and children. I was living there at the time. I organized the survivors into a posse. Using the Captain Anderson identity, I secured certain necessary pieces of military hardware. We caught up with and captured the renegades, tried them, convicted them, and executed them. I don't know if the report is in there or not." I looked to Lizard for help.

"All the renegade material is under very tight security," she said calmly. "And none of it is in the network. It's all hard copy, and only on a need-to-know basis."

"Oh," I said. "Well. It was, um-then I guess I'd better not say too much about it. It was a very unpleasant duty, and uh, the resolution was particularly disturbing. Perhaps it was even mishandled, but if we hadn't handled it the way we did, it wouldn't have been handled at all-and letting the renegades continue what they were doing would have been even more intolerable.

"The point is, this particular incident made it quite obvious what the nature of the renegade-Chtorran relationship really was." I noticed that one of the president's aides had handed her a red-covered folder. She was reading it as I spoke. Occasionally, she would glance up and study me. If that was the report, I wondered who had written it.

Lizard said, "That was when Captain McCarthy put a prearranged pickup signal into the network and I pulled him out of Colorado."

The general did not look convinced.

It didn't matter. The president spoke then. "Captain," she said. "May I ask you a question?"

"Ma'am?"

"You've given us the bare bones, but I know that there's a lot more to it than you've told us. I've been looking over your file. It's obvious that you've been through a great deal of personal anguish here. Is that correct?"

"Yes, Ma'am. That is."

"Thank you. Now, I'm going to ask you something, and I want you to try to put aside your personal feelings. As difficult as that may be, it's necessary. I need you to be an impartial observer of your own experience, so you can give me an accurate answer."

"I'll do my best, Ma'am."

"I'm sure you will. Here's the question, Captain. In your experience, are the renegades still human'?"

"Um . . . Ma'am, I've seen them in all different kinds of situations. I've seen them celebrate birthday parties for their children, giving the kids worm-back rides. Have you ever seen a worm in a party hat? If that was all I'd seen, I'd say yes, the renegades have found a way to preserve their humanity and incorporate the worms into their lives. But that isn't all I've seen." I stopped and cleared my throat. "May I have a glass of water please?"

An aide provided a pitcher and a glass. She filled the glass and handed it to me.

"Thank you," I said.

She smiled quickly and then got out of the way.

I continued. I said, "The other things I've seen-I'd prefer not to talk about. I'd prefer not to think about them. I'd prefer not to even have them in my head. But they are in my head, and I'm afraid they always will be. I've seen humans directing worms against other humans as if they were military weapons. I've seen humans sorting children into pens for use as food for worms. I've seen-" My throat tightened then, and my voice choked. I put my hand up to cover my mouth, then my eyes. "I've seen my own children-"

And then the tears came.

Lizard handed me a tissue. I turned away from the table for a moment. I could feel her hand on my shoulder. "It's all right, Jim. Let it out," she said. "It's all right."

After a moment, I turned back. "Madam President. You've asked me to be impartial. That's almost impossible for me. From what I've seen of the renegades-I'd have to say this: There's a point at which their identification with the worms is so complete that they've lost touch with the rest of humanity.

"When we captured the tribe that invaded Family, the question that we needed to resolve was not one of guilt. That wasn't in doubt. It was the question of response. What do we do about it? And what it boiled down to was this very question: Do we treat the renegades as human or worm? The answer we came up with at family was that by the very act of collaboration, the renegades had turned in their humanity. I don't know if that's the answer you want, but it's the one that was true at Family. And it's still true for me today. I don't think that traitors to the human species deserve any better than any of our other enemies."

I sat down.

"Thank you, Captain. I think you've definitely made your point." The president looked uneasy. Lizard sat down again too. She turned back to me, put a hand on my knee and whispered, "You did fine."

I shook her hand away and stared at the floor and wondered what I had done. Who had I betrayed this time?

"Come on," said Lizard. She poked me out of my chair. "I'll buy you dinner." She pushed me quickly toward the door.

Two of the men in uniforms started toward us on an interception course, but Lizard just shook her head and kept on guiding me out. "Colonel Tirelli!" one of them called. She let the door cut him off.

They followed us out into the corridor. "Colonel!"

"Just keep moving," she said to me.

They were hurrying to catch up to us. General Wainright was sixtyish, red-faced, overweight, and out of breath. He spoke in exclamation points. The colonel looked like he'd been stamped from a mold.

The general said, "You're not going to get away with this, you know!"

"I don't know what you mean, sir. Now, if you'll excuse us, I have another appointment."

"You cooked that conference. You stacked the deck." The colonel grabbed her arm and stopped her where she stood. Lizard looked at his hand on her elbow.

"Should I deck him?" I asked. I was already stepping forward.

"You do and you're a dead man," the colonel said.

"I'm already dead," I replied; he didn't understand.

Lizard touched my arm. "I'll handle him, Jim." She looked at the man. "Colonel? How many of those fingers do you want broken?"

The general nodded at his aide. "Let go of her."

The colonel did so. The general said, "We know what you did. We know how you scheduled your flights. You've been pulling teams out of Colorado for a year. You deliberately allowed certain areas of infestation to get beyond manageable limits. You wanted to go in there with the nukes, didn't you?"