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him; the Demu hadn't done anything to her mind, that he could detect He realized, though, that he wasn't much of a judge of minds. Including his own.

She came to him, in the control area which he never left unguarded; when he slept, he sealed it off from the rest of the ship. She told him, in her sh-zh lobster accent, that she wanted love with him. She parted her maimed lips and showed the Demu-shortened tongue lifted in what he now knew to be the Demu smile. With the forty teeth gone he could see it quite clearly.

The trouble was that the Demu-Umila still had Lunila's shape of skull and chin and cheekbones. The quicksilver-colored huge-irised eyes were as deep as ever. though their shape was subtly marred by the slight cropping of the eyelids. Her arms and legs were graceful if Barton avoided seeing the hands and feet, and aside from breasts and navel and external genitals, the Demu had not altered her superb lithe torso.

Barton closed his eyes to shut out the sight of the Demu-denuded face and head, put his cheek against Limila's and tried to make love with her. It might have worked if he hadn't noticed the ear that should have been against his nose and wasn't. So instead he failed; he failed her. He was crying when he gently put her out of the control area and relocked it, and for a long time after.

Then he went into the main passenger compartment to see if he could keep from killing the Director and his egg-child out of hand; for the moment, he succeeded. It was a success that helped Barton's dwindling self- confidence. He had all he could do to keep himself under control, let alone keeping the ship on course or his fellow- voyagers in hand.

For one thing he was continually bone-tired. The pseudo-death experience had taken more out of him than he'd realized at first. Followed by a period of hectic activity and nervous tension, and now the need for near- constant alertness, it still dragged him down; recovery was so slow as to be undetectable.

His condition made him easy prey to mental lapses. He became accustomed to waking, as often as not, to find himself apparently back in his cage; each time it took minutes to fight his way back to reality. More frightening were occasional hallucinatory lapses in the presence of others: once he found himself on the verge of defending his Ph.D. Orals presentation to the professor who had

40.

washed him out, before he realized that the prof couldnt possibly be there; it was the Director who sat before him.

Every sight of Limila burned more deeply into him than the last, into a place .where gentleness had once lived. Where now grew something else-something that frightened him.

He didn't let the others see his difficulties any more than he could help, and they were too afraid of him to try to take advantage of bis lapses. They were not wrong; Bar- ton was walking death and knew it; he had been for longer than he liked to admit He kept to himself as much as pos- sible, consonant with the need to keep tabs on his pas- sengers.

Once he looked info a mirror and found he didn't rec- ognize himself. He had no idea how long it had been since he might have been able to do so. He looked at the face in the mirror and decided he didn't like it But then it wasn't really his own work, he realized when he stopped to think about it. The thought made him feel a little better, but not much.

So it was a long tired haul. The "trip out," as Barton thought of it, must have been either oa a faster ship or with a lot of induced hibernation; he had no way of know- ing which, if either, was the correct guess.

Limila came to him again, wanting his love. He tried to turn her away; she didn't want to go. "Barton," she said, clinging to him desperately, "I''am still Limila. They do all this to me, yes"-she stepped back and gestured at her head, at her body-"but inside I am still ME. I AMI" His eyes blurred with tears, losing the fine outline of skull and cheekbones, of neck and shoulders as she stood before him. Seeing, then, only the lobsterish lack of features, it was easier for him to keep shaking his head speechlessly and" back her firmly out the door, locking it after her with a vicious yank that nearly broke the lever.

The next time he saw her she was slumped in a corner looking at the floor. He didn't disturb her trance, but it disturbed him a lot

Hallucinating was a dangerous game to play, for him, now; he knew that. But he thought it might be a solution, with Limila. He invited her into the control area, looked at her and deliberately tried to substitute in his mind her natural appearance.

It worked, and for a few moments he thought it was really going to work. But his mind-picture of unmaimed-

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Limila shifted and distorted. Against all the force he could bring, it changed into the other Tilaran woman, the one with no nail-joints, the blank stare and the scars at the temples. It writhed and screamed, dying again. Barton screamed too, but he didn't hear most of it. When he fought his way back to reality, the sight of the lobster- faced Limila seemed almost beautiful. But only almost.

He could not love it, would never be able to do that.

Limila crouched against the door, terrified. "You must think I'm crazy," Barton said. "I'm sorry. I thought I could fool myself, pretend you were unchanged. It-it didn't work out quite that way. I saw something worse, instead." He knew he couldn't explain further, and said only, "I'm sorry, Limila."

She went away of her own accord, looking back fear- fully.

Barton tried to pair her off with the Demu-ized Earth- male who supposedly "retained function." That one was a real enigma; he wouldn't speak to Barton, or to anyone at all except in Demu. Barton couldn't discover his name or anything else about him, except that apparently he had become Demu wholeheartedly in spirit as well as in guise. Barton decided that when it came down to cases he bad more respect for Doktor Siewen. Which wasnt say- ing much.

At any rate the pseudo-Demu wanted nothing to do with Limila, nor she with him. Barton asked Limila about the matter but wasn't sure whether he misunderstood the answer or simply didn't believe it. "He say," Limila told Barton, "it not Demu breeding season now." She gave Barton the view of uplifted-tongue, the Demu smile. "The Tilari do not wait on season, nor you, I think." But she had smiled like a Demu. Of course. Barton reflected, locking himself alone into the control area, it was the only way they had left her to smile. Well, there wasn't any an- swer; maybe there never had been. Or not lately.

Barton now avoided Limila almost entirely. It was the only thing he could do for either of them. The next time the functional Demu-Earthmale got in his way. Barton without warning knocked him square on his back against the opposite bulkhead and was happily beginning to kick him to death before Limila tried to push between them, shrilling, "NO, N01 WHY? WHY?" Barton had no an- swer, shrugged and moved away, marveling at his ability to leave the two Demu alive as long as he had.

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Actually, not noticing the change much. Barton had become rather fond of the Director's small egg-child.

Without knowing its name, or being able to pronounce it, probably. Barton thought of it as female. He called it "Whnee," after the sound of its rather plaintive little cries when uncertain what was wanted of it. It tried to be help- ful with the ship's few chores, and Barton came to think of it as a nice-enough kid; too bad she came from such a rot- ten family. Occasionally it would make the Demu lifted- tongue smile at him, and oddly he found the gesture not at all repulsive, but rather appealing.

Siewen was no trouble; he was only a shell, not a per- son. He reflected the thought or policy of the One in Charge; once that had been the Director, now it was Bar- ton. Any authority was good enough for that which had once been Doktor Siewen.

The Director was no problem either. Barton simply didn't bother to take the splint-harnesses off his arms, even when they bad probably healed. The other Demu- human tried to unstrap the Director once, but Barton caught him and so reacted that neither Whosits nor anyone else tried it again. It took another set of splints;

Barton guessed he was in a rut.

But what the bell; it worked, which was more than Barton could say for much of anything else he'd tried lately. The only late effort he liked much was his clothes.

He'd hated the Demu robes, which all the others still wore.

He had essayed nudity but found it too reminiscent of his captivity. Eventually he had ripped a robe into two pieces: one made a loincloth and the other a short cape that left his arms free. Barton didn't care what it looked like; it was comfortable. He could use all the comfort he could get.

Finally the ship approached Earth's solar system. Bar- ton was going home. Not really, of course. There was nothing for him there. He knew he'd be lucky to get a hear- ing before being locked up as a public menace. But he had to take the risk, because it was everybody's chance, may- be the only one Earth would ever get. He wasn't looking for a return to normal life. That wasn't in the cards; he'd been playing too long with a 38-card deck. But there was one thing, for sure.

Barton had survived; maybe Earth could survive. He had to give it the chance to try. He was bringing home a

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fair sample of what Earth was up against: the lobsters, their ship and some of their other works.

The lobsters would be confined and studied; Barton smiled grimly at that prospect. He wondered how long it would take them to get used to the fact that on Earth it's messy to piss on the floor. He might go to see the little one sometimes if anyone would let him; they could say "Whnee" to each other and maybe now and then she'd raise her tongue in the Demu smile.

He couldn't bring himself to worry about what might be- come of Siewen or Whosits; he had enough worry on his own account. But he hoped someone-someone more capable than he-would take care of Limila. All Barton could do was try to take care of Earth, and maybe of Bar- ton with luck.

The ship could help a lot. It and its weapons would be analyzed and copied, maybe even improved. Human science had been moving fast, the last Barton had heard;

no telling how much further it had gone.

Most important, though, was showing Earth what the well-barbered humanoid wouldn't be wearing next sea- son if the Demu had their way; as modeled by Siewen and Limila and Whosits. Barton thought he knew how the people of Earth would react.

They wouldn't like it any better than he did. They might decide to teach the Demu what it meant, to cage a man.

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II.