“I need to understand your findings, sir,” Diaz said. “Right now I can only believe. That isn’t enough, is it?”

Slowly, Rostock’s mouth drew into a smile of quite human warmth. “Correct. But given the faith, intellectual comprehension should be swift.”

“I…I shouldn’t be taking your time…now, sir,” Diaz stammered. “How should I begin? Should I take some books back with me?”

“No.” Acceptance had been reached; Rostock spoke resonantly, a master to his trusted servant. “I need your help here. Strap into yonder harness. Our first necessity is to survive the battle upon us. You realize that this means sacrificing many of your comrades. I know how that will hurt you. Afterward we shall spend our lives repaying our people…both our peoples. But today I shall ask you questions about your fleet. Any information is valuable, especially details of construction and armament which our intelligence has not been able to learn.”

Doña mía. Diaz let go the door, covered his face and fell free, endlessly. Help me.

“It is not betrayal,” said the superman. “It is the ultimate loyalty you can offer.”

Diaz made himself look at the cabin again. He shoved against the bulkhead and stopped by the harness near the desk.

“You cannot lie to me,” said Rostock. “Do not deny the pain I am giving you.” Diaz glimpsed his fists clamping together. “Each time I look at you, I share what you feel.”

Diaz clung to his harness. There went an explosion through him.

NO, BY GOD!

Rostock screamed.

“Don’t,” Diaz sobbed. “I don’t want—” But wave after wave ripped outward. Rostock flopped about in his harness and shrieked. The scene came back, ramming home like a bayonet.

* * *

“We like to put an extra string on our bow,” the psych officer said. Lunar sunlight, scarcely softened by the dome, blazed off his bronze eagles, wings and beaks. “You know that your right ulna will be replaced with a metal section which contains a nerve-triggered nuclear cartridge. But that may not be all, gentlemen.”

He bridged his fingers. The young men seated on the other side of his desk stirred uneasily. “In this country,” the psych officer said, “we don’t believe humans should be turned into puppets. Therefore you will have voluntary control of your bombs; no posthypnosis, Pavlov reflex, or any such insult. However, those of you who are willing will receive a rather special extra treatment, and that fact will be buried from the consciousness of everyone of you.

“Our reasoning is that if and when the Unasians learn about the prisoner weapon, they’ll remove the cartridge by surgery but leave the prosthetic bone in place. And they will, we hope, not examine it in microscopic detail. Therefore they won’t know that it holds an oscillator, integrated with the crystal structure. Nor will you; because what you don’t know, you can’t babble under anesthesia.

“The opportunity may come, if you are captured and lose your bomb, to inflict damage by this reserve means. You may find yourself near a crucial electronic device, for example a spaceship’s autopilot. At short range, the oscillator will do an excellent job of bollixing it. Which will at least discomfit the enemy, and may give you a chance to escape.