"Then let's go. This is a conversation I have been lodging forward to for a long time."
When I got out of the bed my muscles creaked and snapped and I felt a thousand years old. I was wearing swimming attire, as was Angelina; informality was the order of the day at the luxurious Ringa Baligi. This also enabled us to do our dive for life if any troops came nosing around. Which made me think.
"What happens if any interfering Cliaandians come this way? I assume plans have been made to hide Kraj."
"Hide is the correct word. Since he is unconscious he can be stowed in the back of one of the refrigerators. A good idea, particularly if they forget and leave him there."
"Vengeance later, information now. I wonder what fascinating facts the good doctor has uncovered about our alien?"
"He's not an alien," Dr. Mutfak insisted. While I slept he had been working in the small but complete laboratory that was part of the mini-hospital in the hotel. "I will stake my reputation on it."
"The only reputation that you have that I know of is as a brainsqueezer," I said. "Can you be sure…"
"I will not be insulted by foreigners!" The doctor shouted, drawing himself up in anger so the top of his head almost reached my shoulder. "Insults from females I am used to, but from offworlders I will not bear. Even on the nameless planet where you were spawned it must be known that the basis of all medical training is a sound grounding in biology and physiology. It so happens that cytology is a bit of a hobby of mine—I could show you cells that would have you crying aloud with wonder—so I know what I am about. This man's cells are human, so he is human. A viable homo sapiens."
"But the differences, so alien, his low body temperature, the lack of emotions, all that."
"All well within the realm of human variation. Mankind is quite adaptable, and generations of survival in various environments produce suitable adaptations. There are many more exotic instances cited in the literature than are represented by this individual."
"Then he couldn't be a robot either?" Angelina asked with wide-eyed innocence, skittering away when I reached to grab her. My theories didn't seem to be holding up too well.
"When can we talk to him?" I asked.
"Soon, soon."
"Is it permitted to ask what you have done to him that will make him amenable to questioning?"
"A good question." Mutfak fingered his silvery beard and concentrated on interpreting the mysteries of medicine for the layman.
"Since this is the man who appears to be responsible for the major and harmful tampering with your brain I did not feel what might be called the usual moral responsibility of doctor to patient, particularly when the patient has helped arrange the ruthless invasion of my planet as well."
"Good for you. Doc."
"Therefore I have been quite single-minded and have circumvented his normal thought processes for our benefit and not for his. I did not do this easily, and feel it is just as much a moral crime as what was done to you, but I will take the responsibilities of the act. The fact that he was unconscious when brought here was a help. I have planted false memories and caused regression in areas Of attitude and emotions, put in memory blocks and in general have done some terrible things for which I will carry shame until the day I die."
Dr. Mutfak looked as though he might cry at any moment and I patted him on the shoulder.
"You're a front line soldier. Doctor, going into battle. Doing what you have to do to win. We all respect you for it."
"Well I don't, but I shall worry about that later." He shook himself and was the man of science again. "In a few minutes I shall bring the patient up from the deep trance. He will appear to be awake but his conscious mind will have little or no awareness of what is happening. His emotional attitudes will be those of a child of about age two who wants to help. Remember that. Do not force questions or act hostile. He wants to aid you in every way he can, but many times won't have access to the information easily. Be kind and rephrase the question. Don't push too hard. Are you ready?"
"I guess so." Though I found it hard to think of Kraj as a cooperative kiddy.
Angelina and I trooped along behind the doctor, into the dimly lit hospital room. A male nurse who had been sitting by the bed stood up when we came in. Mutfak arranged the lighting so most of it fell on Kraj while we sat in half darkness, then gave the man an injection.
"This should work quite fast," he said.
Kraj's eyes were closed, his face slack and unmoving. White bandages wrapped his skull and a handful of wires slipped out from under them to the machines beside the bed.
"Wake up, Kraj, wake up," the doctor said.
Kraj's face stirred, his cheek twitched and his eyes slowly opened. His expression was one of calm serenity and there was the trace of ashy smile on his lips.
"What is your name?"
"Kraj." He spoke softly in a hoarse voice that reminded me of a young boy's. There were no traces of resistance.
"Where do you come from?"
He frowned, blinking at me, and stammered some meaningless sounds. Angelina leaned forward and patted his hand and spoke in a friendly tone.
"You must be calm, don't rush. You have come here from Cliaand, haven't you?"
"That's right." He nodded and smiled.
"Now think back, you have a good memory. Were you born on Cliaand?"
"I—I don't think so. I have been there a long time, but I wasn't born there. I was born at home."
"Home is another world, a different planet?"
"That's right."
"Could you tell me what it is like at home."
"Cold."
When he said it his voice was as chill as the word, more like the Kraj we knew, and his face worked constantly, expressions echoing his words.
"Always cold. Nothing green, nothing grows, the cold doesn't stop. You have to like cold and I never did though I can live with it. There are warm worlds and many of us go to than. But there are not many of us. We don't see each other very much, I don't think we like each other and why should we? There is nothing to like about snow and ice and cold. We fish, that is all, nothing lives on the snow. All the life is in the sea. I put my arm in once but I could not live in the water. They do and we eat them. There are warmer worlds."
"Like Cliaand?" I asked, quietly as Angelina had done. He smiled.
"Like Cliaand. Warm all the time, hot too, too hot, but I don't mind that. Strange to see living things on the land other than people. There is a lot of green."
"What is the name of home, of the cold world?" I whispered.
"The name… the name…"
The transformation was immediate. Kraj began to writhe on the bed, his face twisting and working, his eyes wide and staring. Dr. Mutfak was shouting at him to forget the question, to lie still, while he tried to get a hypodermic needle into his thrashing arm. But it was too late. The reaction I had triggered went on and just for an instant, I swear there was the light of intelligence and hatred in his eyes as the conscious Kraj became aware of what was happening.
But only for that moment. An instant later his back arched in a silent spasm and he collapsed, still and unmoving.
"Dead," Dr. Mutfak pronounced, looking at his telltale instruments."
"That was useful," Angelina said, walking to the window and throwing open the curtains. "Time for a swim if you feel up to it, darling. Then we'll have to think of a way to get another gray man for Dr. Mutfak. Now that we know the area to avoid we can make him last longer while he is questioned."
The doctor recoiled. "I couldn't, not again. We killed him, I killed him. There was an implanted order, an irresistible order, to die rather than reveal where this planet is. It can be done, the death wish, I have seen it now. Never again."
"We have been raised differently, doctor," Angelina said, calmly and without passion. "I would shoot a creature like Kraj in battle and I feel no differently about his dying in this manner. You know what he is and what he has done."
I said nothing because I agreed with them both. Angelina who saw the galaxy as a jungle, as survival a matter of eating or being eaten. And the doctor, a humanitarian who had been raised in a matriarchy, stable and unchanging, peaceful and at peace. They were both right. An interesting animal is man.