Efficient use of space-terrible ergonomic design, Derec thought critically.

They came to a tiny hexagonal room barely large enough for both of them to stand in. It seemed to be a hub between intersecting corridors, since each wall framed an identical door. The alien paused for Derec to catch up, then continued on through.

“Where do the other doors lead?”

“Can’t tell ‘u,” the alien said cheerfully.

Beyond the hub, the interior of the ship had a different character. There were just as many walls and small spaces, but the walls were either of a coarse mesh, almost more like fencing, or had large windowlike cutouts. Together the mesh and the cutouts provided long lines of sight and the feeling not of small spaces but of a large busy one.

The largest space within this deck seemed to be straight ahead. Peering over the alien’s shoulder, Derec caught glimpses of what seemed to be a control center, and of a figure seated at the console with its back to them. There was something familiar and human about the figure, and something wrong and disturbing at the same time.

As soon as the caninoid led him into the control center, Derec knew why he was getting mixed messages, and who-or what-the storage corridors had been designed for. The alien sitting at the console was decidedly humanoid, and Derec could describe him in very human terms-a slender build, thin neck, almost hairless head, pale skin.

But even sitting down, Aranimas was as tall as Derec, and he had the arm span of a condor. The entire horseshoe-shaped console, easily three human arm spans wide, was within his comfortable reach.

Beyond and above Aranimas was a huge curved viewing screen on which eight different views of the asteroid’s surface were being projected. Superimposed on most of them were blue-lined targeting grids and small characters Derec took to be numbers. Some of the characters were changing constantly, and others seemed to change in response to Aranimas’s hands moving over the console and to the endless pattern of explosions and groundslides on the surface.

“Praxil, denofah, praxil mastica,” he was saying, apparently into a microphone. “Deh feh opt spa, nexori.”

Derec took a step forward. “Aranimas?”

The alien turned his head slightly to the left, and a chill went through Derec. The lizardlike eye that peered back at him was set in a raised socket on the side of Aranimas’s head. From behind, Derec had mistaken the eye bumps for ears.

“Sssh!” the caninoid alien said nervously, grasping Derec’s hand and pulling him back. “Don’t interrupt the boss. ‘E’ll talk to ‘u when ‘e’s ready.”

Aranimas turned back to his work and resumed speaking. Derec had the impression that he was issuing orders, chiding, prodding, reprimanding, assigning targets and grading gunners. There was nothing moving on the surface and nothing stirring below, and yet the carnage went on.

After a few minutes of watching, Derec could no longer restrain himself. “There’s nothing down there anymore,” Derec blurted. “They blew it all up. What are you doing this for?”

“Prrractice,” Aranimas said. His voice was high-pitched and he trilled the “r” sound.

It went on for another ten minutes that way, millions of watts of energy expended uselessly against an inert and lifeless world. Then Aranimas ran a fingertip along a row of switches, and the screens went blank.

“Rijat,” he said, and turned his chair to face them. “What is your name?”

“Derec.” Only one of Aranimas’s eyes was trained on him; the other glanced around randomly. Derec could not imagine what it would be like to view the world that way. Did the alien’s brain switch back and forth between the two inputs, like a director choosing a camera shot? Or did it somehow integrate the two images into one?

“This device you used to attack my ship,” Aranimas continued. “What was it?”

“An augmented worksuit-altered to allow the leg servos to operate at full power. But I wasn’t attacking you. I was escaping.”

Aranimas’s other eye pivoted forward and focused on Derec. “Were you a prisoner?”

“I was stranded on the asteroid in a survival pod. The robots found me and then wouldn’t let me go. I had to steal that equipment from them to get away.”

“And where did you come from before you were stranded?”

“I don’t know,” Derec said, frowning. “I can’t remember anything before that.”

“Don’t lie to ‘im,” the caninoid whispered. “It makes ‘im angry.”

“I’m not lying,” Derec said indignantly. “As far as I can tell, five days ago I didn’t exist. That’s how much I know about who I am.”

While Derec spoke, Aranimas reached inside the folds of his clothing and extracted a small golden stylus. Seeing it, the caninoid cringed and turned half away.

“Oh, no,” it whined. “Too late.”

Aranimas pointed the stylus at Derec’s side, and a pale blue light began to dance over the entire surface of Derec’s hand. He screamed in pain and dropped to his knees. It was as though he had trust his hand into a raging furnace, except that no skin was being destroyed and no nerve endings deadened. The pain just went on and on, sapping his strength until even the screams caught in his throat, too feeble to free themselves.

“I know something of the rules of governing robots and humans,” Aranimas said calmly while Derec writhed on the floor. “Humans build robots to serve them. Robots follow human direction. If you were the only human on this asteroid, then it follows that the robots here were under your command, and serving your purpose.”

Aranimas tipped the stylus ceilingward, and the blue glow vanished. The pain vanished with it, except for the memory. Derec lay on his side and sucked in air in great gasping breaths.

“I will know who you are and what you know about the object you brought aboard,” Aranimas said quietly. “To end the pain, you need only tell me the truth.”

His face as emotionless as his trilling voice, Aranimas pointed the stylus at Derec once more.

Chapter 8. Test Of Loyalty

At some point, it ended. But by that time Derec was in no condition to know clearly why Aranimas had interrupted his torture. He had only a vague awareness of Aranimas’s going away, and of being dragged away from the control center by the caninoid.

Unable to either resist or help, he was taken to another section of the subdivided compartment and laid on a thinly padded board. He lay there drifting in and out of consciousness, sometimes aware of the caninoid crouching solicitously beside him, sometimes aware of nothing but his own confusion and fatigue.

In one of his lucid moments he became aware that the alien was holding a cup of clear liquid for him, and struggled up on one elbow.

“ ’U bettrr tell Aranimas what ‘e wants to know,” the caninoid whispered as it offered the cup.

Derec tipped his head forward and reached for the cup. His right hand trembled uncontrollably, so he had to use his left to steady the cup as he sipped at the cool liquid. It was sweet, like a thin honey, and bathed his ravaged throat with relief.

“How tough do you think humans are?” he croaked. “If I knew anything I’d have told him in the first five minutes. If he keeps this up he’s going to kill me. Why won’t he believe me?”

The caninoid glanced nervously around before answering. “Do ‘u know Narwe?”

Derec could not tell if the name was of a species or an individual, but it did not matter to his answer. “No.”

“Aranimas knows Narwe. Narwe ‘ass to be forced to be honest. If ‘u ask Narwe a question, it will lie or pretend it doesn’t understand or hass forgotten. Hurt Narwe enough and it always tell.”

“I’m not a Narwe!” Derec protested weakly. “Is he too stupid to see that?”

“Aranimas thinks ‘u use the Narwe trick,” the caninoid said. “Besides, Aranimas iss very angry.”