I said harshly, "I don't know what you're trying to say. I don't think you do, either. But whether you do or don't, I don't care. So far as I'm concerned, you're just another traitor to your race. You're like that Kel who helped us kill the rest of them so he could live. You did the same thing when the globes took over Bejak II. You let them bring you here, helped them put out these thrill-mills—"

I broke off as Celeste began to shake. My own hands suddenly weren't steady.

A minute passed, and then another and another.

Slowly, then, Celeste raised her face. "I hope you think it through sometime, Mark Traynor," she whispered in a tear-choked voice. "I hope you ask yourself what's back of all the hate that's in you, and then try to link that up with me, so you can find the reason why I helped the Kel put out their thrill-mills."

I stood very still. "Go on."

"Why should I? You already know the answer. Or if you don't, you haven't the mind ever to understand it."

Her hands drew into fists, then. Her words came in a furious rush: "I hated them, do you understand? I hated them more than you could ever dream of! I was on Bejak II! I saw the things they did—the way the people were slaughtered.

"Only I saw other things too, Mark Traynor! I saw it wasn't the Kel's fault, not all of it. We could have fought them off, if it hadn't been for the FedGov and its racked compulsory conditioning.

"That conditioning—it made us like so many sheep. It robbed us of our imagination, our lust for life, our fighting spirit. And then, later on, when my own patterns broke and I found what our world looked like when inhibition wasn't muting our senses and our feelings—"

Another change of mood, a shift in fervor. Warmth replaced rage. Pleading took the place of anger:

"That's why I did it, Mark. All at once it dawned on me I was hating the wrong thing, the wrong race. I thought that if even a few of our kind could break loose, throw off their patterns, there might be a chance for human freedom. And with freedom, we could beat the Kel.

"You know how I felt, Mark—because you've felt the same way! You hated going back, being reconditioned. Every time, it got harder for you to give up freedom. Only you didn't dare admit it, not even to yourself."

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