"No."

"But you dealt with the animals, that is so? And still you are human to the eighth – " The Commander's eyes had traveled from Farree's face to a point hanging above him – perhaps the indicator of this truth machine.

Human to the eighth point, Farree heard that clearly enough. Not human to the tenth and full! He looked down at his claw-thin hands and the greenish skin which covered them. Was he then no freak of human kind, but something else – something which was perhaps to all of these as Yazz and Toggor were to him? He considered that and shivered. Perhaps he was not so different from Yazz and Bojor as far as the Thassa were concerned after all.

He tried to straighten a little and the burden on his shoulders flashed a thrill of pain through him. Now the very question they had asked him became all important: Who WAS he?

"Why did they return to Yiktor? Was not the woman in exile?" Sulve took up the questioning.

"I do not know." The truth, always the truth. The Lord-One Krip had told him, but he had not yet heard it from the Lady herself.

Both of the men were staring at the point above his head now and a slight frown had returned to the Commander's face.

"What said they of Sehkmet then?" he asked abruptly.

"That they had helped to find a place of the Forerunners – a great treasure – and there were Guild men there who were defeated."

"Nothing more?"

"Nothing." Farree made quick reply.

"Ah." The Commander picked up a tube lying on the table before him, setting aside the smoke stick. He pointed it at Farree and the hunchback gave a cry he could not smother as a pain like a flow of skin-burning acid struck him full on.

"What said they of Sehkmet and this time the truth – "

"Only that the Lady Maelen is now wearing a body found there – that she defeated something strange and not of flesh and blood to claim it." Farree could not see that that was of any importance, but it was the rest of the truth about the past – something which these two might well know and so be able to check his word.

"You see, you can remember when you are prodded," the Commander commented. "Play no more games with me. Did this Maelen and Vorlund return here to gather a force to search elsewhere, hoping or knowing that such luck would continue?''

"I do not know. There were three rings and power – "

"We all know of the blathering about the three rings, Dung. And the Thassa have their own power. But this Maelen possesses something else, does she not?"

He was turning that rod of torment around in his fingers, playing with it as he divided his glances between Farree and what was overhead.

"I do not know." Farree tried to brace himself for another blast of that body-shaking pain. The frown was plainer on the Commander's face.

"What you know, it seems, is very little if at all what is needed. Let us take up the matter of Lanti."

For a moment it looked as if Sulve was going to protest, but if he was not in accord with his partner he did not voice any objection.

"Who was Lanti?"

Once more Farree told the story of his first memory – of the spacer who had died over a spilled drink and given him freedom of a sort.

The Commander stubbed out his smoke stick. "In other words. Dung, you know little or nothing which is of service to us. Why should we keep you alive?"

Farree made no attempt to answer that. He had in him still that core of belief which had not let him whine in the Limits and which, even in spite of the pain, kept him from crying out here. Human to the eighth point only was he? Then he would prove that his stock, whatever it might be, had some rags of courage.

Sulve tapped those rolls of fat which were his fingers on the edge of the viewer. "He is not worth two copper units – not even one of inguaw wood."

"Perhaps not in himself. But as bait – yes, as bait. They have been sending over those flying eyes of theirs. There may be some merit in keeping him a while longer."

He clicked his fingers, and the same guard who had forced the head circlet on Farree came to yank it off, his hair pulled painfully in the process.

"The tower again," the Commander ordered. "And the viewer for you, Sulve. If they come a-hunting this misshapen blotch, we can at least know it once when they are beyond that impenetrable wall of theirs. They will not remain there forever,"

"Time – " began the fat man.

"Time governs itself. We cannot thrust it forward nor draw it back. They depend upon the third ring of that moon of theirs. It may be only superstition, but I am inclined to believe that it is more than that as far as the Thassa are concerned. Remember, they were an old stock before the first lordling arose here to take land for himself."

"Worn out – "

"No!" The Commander shook his head firmly. "Do not make the mistake of the untraveled, Sulve; you should know better. Because a people does not huddle in cities, is not tempted by trade goods, it need not be primitive. I have heard much of the Thassa – and I do not believe that they are in decline, but rather have passed into a new way of life by their own virile choice."

A hard grip on Farree's arm dragged him near off his feet so he had to scurry to keep up as he was led from the room and across the broken pavement in the courtyard. They had learned nothing from him about the Thassa, and what good his memory of Lanti might serve he did not know. He dared not try a cast for Toggor – Sulve might be able to pick that up. Farree had heard many tales of the superior equipment the Guild was supposed to use. And what good would the smux do free in this place when the hunchback could not communicate with him?

He was soon back in that room at the top of the tower, flung into a corner and the door slammed against him, trying still to keep his mind clear of any thought of Toggor. That the small creature could unbar the door was impossible and there was no willing bartle to be summoned this time.

Once more he hunkered down, his arms around his knees, and allowed himself to think – not of the Thassa or the Lord-One Krip or the Lady Maelen – but rather of his vivid dream the night before and of Lanti and of who or what he himself might be.

Points on the human-man-alien scale had been decided long ago. There were creatures near the alien end of that scale who possessed attributes that even a higher "man" could not understand. Thus —

Eight points – and what did those points consist of? Somewhat for his body form: he had two legs, two arms, a head, and a humanoid body. He could be a crippled "man" as well as an alien. His skin was greenish in tint, but that was nothing, for the Thassa were white of skin and hair, and these two who had just questioned him were space-browned and had dark hair. He had seen "men" with two pairs of arms, with the scaled skin of the Zacanthans and their lizardlike neck frills, with the soft fur pelts of the Salarki and their feline features. All came and went through space and no one remarked at their differences.

But in all his seasons in the Limits he had never seen one so bowed of body as himself. Why had Lanti had him? He was sure he had come from off-world with that one and that he had had some importance in Lanti's plans before the spacer became so soaked in var juice that his mind was not far from a mush. Therefore, if Farree had had importance once —

And he had revealed that to the Guild!

Farree sat up, murmured at the pain of his back. But that was not harsh enough to drive out of him the thought that he had indeed revealed much to his interrogators. Not perhaps the information which they had sought, but concerning himself. The Guild was noted for the thoroughness of any hunt which might claim a profit. What had Lanti stumbled on which had produced that incandescent rag of stuff which his questioner had also shown to Farree?