"It's the only way you can even hope to stay alive yourself." And then, after an instant's pause and with a gesture of my paragun: "You see, I agree with your sentiments on treason—and I also happen to know you're the man who gave the Kel those thrill-mill gadgets in the first place!"

For an instant Kruze's knuckles went white against the desk. Then, quite suddenly, he leaned back. His head seemed to sink down between his shoulders. "You've either said too much or not enough, Traynor."

I said, "I should have recognized it from the start, of course: No alien ever could have achieved such insight into the workings of the human mind. That made our villain a man—a man so high in the Federation that he was allowed to operate under minimal conditioning or none at all; a man who had access to whatever he needed in the way of supplies or equipment or personnel, and no questions asked or answers given.

"Give a man like that a lust for power. Then throw in a stalemated war against the Kel—a war that neither side can hope to win.

"As a human among humans, our man's authority is strictly limited. Conditioned or not, our race has had enough of despots.

"But supposing he can help the Kel to victory? Mightn't they be willing to make him absolute and autocratic ruler of his kind?"

Again, I gestured. "There it is, Kruze. That's how you worked it. And that's why you were so bitter when I kept blowing everything apart.

"All along the line, there were pointers to your collaboration. Like the way the Kel turned loose Celeste and me, back at that warehouse on Rizal. That was your work: You didn't want to chance my having too much contact with them. So you ordered them to let me go.

"And don't bother reminding me they took you prisoner, too. Because that was more of your own planning. You didn't intend to take chances of being killed accidentally, once the actual invasion got under way.

"If that's still not enough—if you want court proof—I found cargo manifests aboard that globeship that I captured. They show the thrill-mills went to Rizal as classified Security supplies. With that to go on, it won't be any trick to find the techs who made them. They'll tie you to it tight."

Silence. A long, long moment of silence.

Then, abruptly, Kruze asked, 

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