"The pirate warlords will be no gentle masters," Chow Dai noted. "They will be a race of foreign devils, all Sabatinis, but with all the magic boxes in the world and the protection of the warlords. They will make us the lowest of slaves and make us love to be slaves. I would rather die than be like that."

"I agree, but we have come too far to die now," Chu Li responded. "Yet what you say is true, and if we go home and try to sneak back down, and do so, we would have to become peasants in some remote and foreign place. It would not be much different than the other way, and we would always be looking over our shoulders."

"Of course," Chow Dai said thoughtfully, "we could just go on to Melchior."

"Huh? What?"

"I do not understand these things, but did you not say that this ship's spirit could change our papers, make us someone we are not, enough to fool those above us?"

"Yes, I did, but-" Suddenly she saw where Chow Dai's mind was going and reached for the headphones. "I wish data on Melchior."

"Melchior is a hollowed-out asteroid between Mars and Jupiter maintained as a reserve by the Presidium," the pilot responded. "Just what do you wish to know about it?"

"Is all of it a prison?"

"No. There are three parts. The prison itself, where all who are sent there are kept. It is something of a community in and of itself, but it is ugly and unpleasant. No one has ever escaped from it. The center is the research complex.

All staff there are also there for life, and many of their experiments are on the prisoners. A third area, however, is the staff complex itself. All supplies and new people enter through it, and there is some interaction with the outside world through the small spaceport that connects there, as well as security personnel who may be rotated and the independents who sneak in to do business.

Presidium members and staff also sometimes meet here, and the full Presidium always does at some point or another every one to three years."

"Details on this staff complex. What is it? A town? A city like Center?"

"It has a town organization and is quite small, but it is unique. There are dwelling units of increasing size and comfort depending on position in three areas, surrounding a town center. The center sells luxuries and dispenses necessities according to a computer-controlled system of work credits. There is, however, much human service work, all manual, usually performed by former prisoners modified for that service."

Blind, she could hardly pass herself off as someone new in security, nor could the sisters, with their terrible scars. She had to think as Song Ching would think-as Song Ching's father would think.

"You say there is much human experimentation and some two-way traffic. Is this place never used to modify or repair Earth people?"

"That is a primary function. Those whom the Presidium wish to use but who cannot be allowed to continue to exist as they are, for example, are sent there and changed radically. A death is convincingly faked for them on Earth and recorded with Master System. Also, there are enhancements and repairs of grave injuries suffered doing things which cannot be registered with Master System."

"Then we will go to Melchior with our records modified," she told it. "I will give you my story and then cover stories for the other two. You will prepare supporting documentation. We will be not prisoners but patients."

"This is dangerous. I have no hypnotics or master mindprinter aboard. You will have to give convincing performances, at least until you can get clandestine access to a mindprinter yourself. One curious hypno or security examination will expose all three. One slip will expose all three."

"We will have to risk it. Orders and paperwork and records often supersede common sense. It is why I have gotten this far. I have some codes and overrides, a knowledge of the equipment, and I will not be a prisoner but a patient.

Besides, no one ever breaks in to Melchior."

"You have no idea what they can do in there," the pilot warned. "It is said that if Master System knew, it would blow the whole place to pieces."

"It is the best of a bad set of alternatives," she responded, but inwardly she was excited. Change identities, change personalities, change into whole new people ... You have no idea what they can do in there. Might not even Chu Li perhaps live again? Might not the Chows gain outer beauty to match their inner selves? Considering how far she'd already come, nothing was beyond reach.

"Uh-if we go to Melchior under those conditions, what about Sabatini?"

"He is already past the normal preservation stage and has been placed in a cryogenic condition. I can keep him there at least until I return to Earth orbit. By that time, you should either be away or exposed. In either case it will make no difference."

"Very well. Let's do it."

"Hawks!" The voice echoed through the subterranean garden. "Where's the heap big Hyiakutt chief now, eh? Come talk to Raven!"

There was a rustle and the sound of a large body dropping to the ground and coming toward the edge of the garden and its forcefield.

Even though he'd been well briefed, Raven was still shocked at Hawks's appearance. The man was filthy, worse than when the Crow had captured him, but, more, he had a wildness in his face and eyes and a brutal, animal-like gait and carriage that was somehow unnerving. Even though the Hyiakutt's current personality set was mere overprinting-that is, all of him was there below it and could be used-the Crow knew that he'd use tranquilizer darts before trusting himself with this fellow now to redo the printing and preparations.

If Raven was surprised to see Hawks, then the reverse was even more true.

Hawks squinted. "Ray-ven," he growled. "Why are you still here?" It was obviously a labor to speak, which was understandable.

"I've got a new job and a new boss, that's why. We're not rid of each other yet.

How have you liked it the last few days?"

Hawks charged the forcefield with a roar and was thrown back. He picked himself up but returned only a surly glare. "Bas-tard Crow!"

Lazlo Chen had indeed taught Hawks the true meaning of "primitive." He had restored the two women, and after having them fully mindprint recorded so they could be restored later, he had wiped them basically clean and imprinted on them the mindprints of female apes of some kind. They had no memories that were not ape memories, no language except the guttural grunts and shrill cries that amounted to about six basic phrases-"danger," "good food," and such. More, they were conditioned to see themselves as apes and each other as apes of the same type and tribe-and to see Hawks that way as well. They ate, preened each other, and slept, and that was life. At least they had no idea that anything was different. Hawks, however, did.

Chen had ordered him imprinted with the bull ape imprint but otherwise left alone. He knew, and he had to watch those he loved act as animals and react to them so, as well. It was the most miserable, unhappy experience in his whole life.

"So you found out being a chief ain't all romance and glory," Raven noted sardonically. "I don't know about you, but among the Crow, though bloodlines will get you a real shot, a chief must prove himself and be elected- and he can be canned if he doesn't have it. That's because the job isn't bravery, although it calls for that, or smarts, although it calls for that. Lots of folks can be politicians and generals. What a chief really means is responsibility. Sending young men off to die. Making widows. Protecting those of the tribe even at the cost of his own life or even his honor. Not like Chen, either, because he doesn't care about his people, only himself. That's because folks like that lack honor. That's why you don't want to work for him, you know. No honor."

Hawks stared at the strange, ugly Crow. Raven had put his finger exactly on the problem, the moral dilemma, and also had shamed him. Men like Chen got where they were and stayed that way because they had no honor and took no responsibility. Even now, Chen wanted others to make him ruler of the universe, to take all the real risks, then hand him the ultimate in power and profits.

Chen didn't care how many were killed or even if his own people were wiped out in doing it. He didn't care about them; he cared only for personal power while avoiding any real sense of responsibility. And yet Chen understood the concept of honor, of responsibility. Understood it and saw it as a weakness, something to be exploited. That was why he had done this.

"Have you come to taunt me in my misery?"

"Naw," the Crow responded. "I've come to take you all away from all this. The heat for you is getting tremendous for one thing, and also, old Chen wants his garden back before it's trampled flat. You can go as apes in cages or you can give your solemn oath that you'll be good, cooperative passengers, and we'll put you all back together. They won't even remember any of this. Only you."

"You-you can put them back?"

"Good as new, except for bruises, scratches, hair tangles, and that sort of thing. Your absolute bond is all I need."

"You have it."

"Now you're thinking like a chief. All right, Chief. We'll get this show on the road tonight. Put you all to sleep, cart you over as cargo, stick you on, then bring you back after we're away."

"You say we. You are going, too?"

"Yeah, me and Cuddles the Warlock. You remember her. She's attacked four people since you left. Chen thinks she's got potential if she can be redirected a bit.

Don't know what he sees in me. I think my job's to keep her in line."

"You are one to speak of honor!"

Raven shrugged. "You'll never really know that, will you? So don't get too excited. This is a one-way trip to Melchior, the nice little garden spot where folks go who have to disappear or be disappeared. At least you won't have to worry about them making monkeys out of you, will you?"

The screen repelled a new attack.

The Melchior asteroid was small and irregularly shaped. Resembling a monstrous, misshapen baked potato, it was ugly, dark, and forbidding. Pockmarked with craters and pits, its one distinguishing feature was a space dock at the smaller end, and even that wasn't visible from a distance.

The origins of the place were lost in antiquity or covered in forbidden knowledge. Why this asteroid, out of all the other ones around, was picked and developed was a mystery only Master System could solve. The rumor was that when humanity was forced kicking and screaming out into the universe, it required adaptation. Mars had been the testing ground for the whole project, and for half the year Melchior was not all that far from Mars as the spacecraft flies. It was said that here the original Martian colonists were tinkered with and reprocessed until they were just right, and perhaps other prototypes were developed on Melchior later. Still, the asteroid wasn't very big, certainly not the sort of place that could process the billions involved, and so it was more or less abandoned by Master System in favor of new and improved mass production models.

How the Presidium then got hold of Melchior was another lost mystery, although it was certainly the Martian Directorate that saw its uses first and somehow convinced Master System that there was a need for a prison strictly for the most valuable prisoners, the ones who could never again be allowed contact with normal society but who had talents or bright ideas. After a few centuries with no escapes and no real threats, Master System didn't even care anymore that the place wasn't hooked into its all-seeing monitors. Some thought its preoccupation with its enigmatic war was the cause, but more likely it was that Master System understood that the sort of men and women who would maintain its system on Earth and Mars had to have some outlet. Better that outlet be a little asteroid in the middle of nowhere and totally self-contained than in the Centers and Councils of Earth and Mars. It didn't really care who or what went in there, or what went on there, so long as they stayed there and so long as they never got out to threaten the system.

The place consisted of three large and countless small chambers, all set apart by kilometers of interlocking tunnels and all blasted with disintegrators out of the rock itself. The closed atmospheric system necessitated a huge number of safety air locks, which also served as security checkpoints; anyone who managed to sneak in could be caught merely by ordering the surrounding air locks sealed and then pumping out the air.

The prison cum prison town was in the larger of the two sides and was interconnected to the laboratories and other research facilities through deliberately confusing and well-monitored tunnels and air locks. The odd design not only maximized use of space but helped to disorient anyone who tried to figure the place out. The labs were underneath the prison and, from the prison's point of view, upside down. Gravity, impossible to create here by the spin method, which was cheapest and most efficient, was provided by a complex electromagnetic' system designed by Master System. Over the centuries here, many scientists had gone absolutely crazy trying to figure out just how it worked.

To make matters worse, the center tunnels connecting the smaller "east" and the larger "west" were not equipped with the gravity system; one actually swam through them, weightless. The maintenance tunnels and chambers were also all weightless. Fortunately, the gravity in the habitation sections was close to Earth normal.

And so, to this place came first Chu Li and the Chows under false colors and then, within a week, Hawks, Cloud Dancer, Silent Woman, Raven, and the strange Manka Warlock. The Chinese, however, were treated a bit better, being listed as official patients, and assigned at the start to the staff area. Because most spaceships were entirely controlled by a computer pilot, the lack of any staff save the three was not even considered unusual.

The psychogeneticist interviewer looked Chu Li over critically. She was brisk and professional but not judgmental.

"So, you are here to become male," the scientist noted, looking at her screens.

"A waste, considering your looks. Is this voluntary? I mean, do you concur?"

Chu Li nodded. "I do. I was always supposed to be, but Master System saw differently. I am a genetic construct."

"I could see that by the cell samples," the psychogeneticist huffed. "There are limits to what can be done short of a total remake, and that takes a lot of time. It says here you must be back in a new identity with all possible speed.

That limits us."

"I will be fully functioning? And feel it?"

"Oh, of course. However, the sperm would not be yours but a-donor's-and we could make only superficial cosmetic changes. Your basic female bod,y shape and bone structure will remain, for example, although we'll remove most of the breasts and smooth out what is left and perhaps surgically adjust the face to give it a more masculine cast. The strong male hormones which we will distill from the minute quantities you produce now but which will then be duplicated and produced by your new glands and sacs will alter you far more as time goes on. I gather no mental adjustment is required for this."

"They want me just the way I am, mentally. That's why they did the first part of the adjustment back there."

"Now, then, you were blinded in a mindprinter accident?"

"Not exactly an accident. I think I wasn't supposed to see something. It was understood that my sight would be restored here."

"Uh huh. Well, we'll have to scan for damage, but if it's just a printer program, it should be simple. We'll send you in for tests now. If all prove out, we'll get started right away."

Melchior was not at all what Chu Li had expected. True, it was inside an asteroid, and there was a strange coldness and dryness to the air, but everyone had been quite nice and quite professional all the way. She didn't really know what the place looked like, of course, but at the moment it seemed more like a hospital than a horrible prison. They were even going to attend to the terrible scars of the Chow sisters. Of course, the fact that their records now identified them as some other people and seemed to come from the higher security levels of China Center didn't hurt, nor did the fact that such records could not be cross-checked with Master System files here.

Melchior was an exciting and exotic place, one that she would like to have seen.

She hoped that they would restore her sight quickly. But even if they did not, she would get a totally new identity. A complete sex change, some cosmetic changes, even subtly different fingerprints and a slightly altered eye pattern.

She could walk right into China Center and right up to Song Ching's miserable relatives, and they would never know.

Doctor Isaac Clayben looked over the data modules on the subject and frowned.

"You were right to come to me," he told the assistant. "You're sure there's no mistake?"

"Absolutely, sir. We took the print when we suspected something and checked it without her even knowing it."

"And the other two?"

"Petty criminals sent here because Doctor Shasvik wanted as many identical twins as he could get. You must admit, sir, that she's both brazen and. brilliant even to have tried this. I have no idea how she could have switched full identification through Master System with this Chu Li boy. I would have sworn it was impossible without coming through here to begin with. In fact, her only mistake was that Melchior is not on Master System, so our records aren't updated when the master is. With the systemwide alert, we naturally put them all through. Her eye and prints matched up with Song Ching, and the other two are former servants of some high-ranking security officer in China Center. When we shot them back to Earth for a run-through, though, Master System identified her absolutely as Chu Li, a natural male. Fascinating."

Clayben scratched his scruffy full beard. "Pity. They are going to make this Song Ching into nothing more than breeding stock. Anyone who could do this is a mind that shouldn't be lost to some culturally sexist attitudes. She could easily do the one thing without sacrificing the other. No one at China Center has been notified?"

"No, sir. Do you wish me to call them?"

"No. Not yet. Let me think about this. In the meantime, continue with all the tests but do absolutely no surgery, psycho or physical."

"Very well. What about the blindness? It's a simple trap program from a portable mindprinter. We could remove it in twenty or thirty minutes."

"Leave it. Give her a fancy and convincing but meaningless excuse. If she can get herself shipped here, change Master System records, take control of a spaceship in midflight, and come up with something so basic that only a lifetime of thinking about beating Master System flawed her success, we don't want her getting oriented here. Imagine somebody like that running loose in this place."

It was a sobering thought.

"Come to think of it," Clayben added, "separate her from her two friends and place them all in the Security Block in the prison. If she figures out where she is, tell her it's routine until everything is set so that no one will know she is even due for a change."

"I doubt she'll buy that."

"What's the difference? And she might, which would make life a lot easier for us. If she figures it out and causes enough uproar, tell her the truth, which includes the fact that I might decide to go through with it anyway and put her to work here. Someone that young who's that good at beating the best could be very valuable."

"Shall we encode her?"

The boss thought about it. "Yes, but slip her a mild sedative first so that she doesn't know it. Encode her as Chu Li and adjust our records accordingly. If I decide not to send her home, I don't want her father coming in here some day and finding out that she was ever here."

When the aide left, Doctor Clayben sat back in his large padded desk chair and sighed. He was a man of advancing middle age and looked it; he had achieved the position of Director of the Medical Section of Melchior, a dream assignment and one which involved being able to poke into everybody's ideas whenever he liked.

Although not a Presidium member himself, he worked for the body as a whole and so had no loyalty or obligation to any one person. He saw himself as a pure scientist, in the one position where he and his colleagues were free from any concepts of forbidden knowledge or political, moral, and religious restrictions.

He had no reservations about authorizing the most radical experiments on human beings; he used only prisoners sent here by the Presidium, people who would have otherwise been executed back on Earth. He felt he gave their miserable lives meaning by allowing them to contribute to the growth of human knowledge, knowledge which for the most part remained right here, under his authority and under his control.

Not even the Presidium guessed the amount of power, knowledge, and abilities contained within Melchior's small confines. The girl had wanted to become a fully functioning male. Child's play. Clayben knew, as most did not, what the bulk of humanity had become out there among the vast stars. It had become alien to its birth species and alien to all in many ways, although curiously still human in the mind. Humanity had always been adaptable; that was its key to survival. It could learn to live permanently with little or no modern technology in arctic wastes or steaming, acidic tropical jungles. Moving five billion people to a thousand worlds was no easy task in the old days, particularly since no two planets were alike and the supply of those tolerable even to adapted humans was rather low.

Humanity, without technological support, was actually very fragile. Earth had been just right, just exactly right, and what evolved there evolved to match it.

Within Earth tolerances, humanity was supreme, but Earth tolerances, while not unique, were very rare indeed. Master System had been in a hurry, and Master System developed the means-possibly right here, on Melchior-to get the job done expeditiously. Clayben knew the means and the methods. That knowledge often made him feel like a god.

Certainly it was better than being a tinpot Presidium dictator always doing the System's bidding and feeling, every time a minor victory was scored, like the little boy who steals pie cooling in the window and gets away with it. Isaac Clayben feared only one thing about Master System, but he could not allow himself to dwell on it: Some day Master System would tire of this sufferance of its loyal servants, or become too suspicious, or not need its Presidium anymore, and then blast this rock into atoms.

Although they remembered nothing of their existence from the time of the hypno treatment along the banks of the Mississippi to the moment they woke up aboard a spaceship, both Cloud Dancer and Silent Woman were somewhat traumatized by their sudden propulsion from a nontechnological culture to one so advanced that it seemed only magical. Magical but cold, Cloud Dancer decided. There was no fresh air, or warm sun, or cold winter's night, or the smell of trees and flowers here. No sense of freedom or of the vastness of a starry sky or an endless horizon. There were only sterile walls, sterile seats and furnishings, and unnatural things. The toilet had taken her days to understand, and the shower seemed somehow a violator of her body. Food, both hot and cold, appeared magically on large trays, yet it all tasted like week-old lard.

Still, both women were committed to Hawks, wherever he might lead. They had already followed him to hell; there could be no place left to go but up.

Manka Warlock was as cool, aloof, and condescending as ever, but if she fell into any more fits of madness, they didn't see it. Raven seemed far more relaxed and always the pragmatist. Hawks suspected that Chen had given Warlock a bit of enforced calming with a mindprinter, changing only her irrational extremes and not her basic self. Such calm wouldn't hold; no one except Warlock would be surprised if she were due for something more than a job when she got to Melchior.

Hawks himself was trying to decide whether he had won a reprieve or was now condemned to the circles of hell. The only thing known about Melchior was that it was a prison from which there had never been an escape, though obviously people did-if rarely-come and go from there. He began to wonder how much of a fool he had been in not taking Chen's offer at the start. Certainly they could make him accept and love anything once they had him on Melchior; they could convince him that the sky was purple and he was Lazlo Chen's identical twin brother. He consoled himself in the rather certain hunch that even if he had accepted, he'd still be aboard this ship. Raven and Warlock had accepted, and here they were. Chen was not about to accept promises of fidelity no matter what the oath.