Of course. The minionette was tough. She would not expire in simple feminine helplessness. If a man began to “hurt” her, she would try to cure the pain by recapturing her considerable power to make him, by male definition, hate her. The men of Minion could hardly allow that. The line between love and hate might seem narrow to some, but it could also be appallingly wide—wide as the chasm of Chthon. For who could say in what manner that terrible emotion might manifest itself, before it settled on the intended object?

The men of Minion were wise. They understood the devastation lying stored beneath the careless torch of uncontrolled emotion. They took the necessary and merciful step, and extinguished it before the minionette acted. They were kind, in their fashion—they tried to give the man back his natural hate before he died, to take with him to his spirit world.

The civilization of the greater galaxy was not so wise. It envisioned mercy as abstinence from death. It recognized the inherent danger of the love of the minionette, but preferred to ship the victim to the eternal prison of Chthon, rather than perform the execution directly.

But even Chthon could not contain the evil of that love. How many there had died?

Why had Malice come into the galaxy? How? What had made her seek him out? Why had she enticed his young love, love that must have tortured her from the beginning? She would have been better off without him, secure in her position in the Merchant Service. Or on her home world, where men understood.

His brain knew the answer, but would not yield it to consciousness. She had told him, there at the—

“Misery—was Pink Rock’s love stronger than mine, before he changed?”

“No, Stone Heart. Your love is the strongest. More than any man.”

Because I am of the galaxy. Because I am a member of a species not conditioned to the minionette. What a rare treat, when a woman of this planet escapes into the galaxy, where every man feels his feelings with naïve strength. Where, unaware of the telepathic linkage, his every confused nuance of anger and pain sears his imagination.

Yes, my emotion is strong. The sensitive hvee responded to it and grew for me in my childhood, and Malice understood that potential—and something else—when she encountered that little boy on that pastoral world. She made her sacrifice and cast her fine net over that boy, and sent him away before the burgeoning sensation became too much for her. She knew that my love was not for her, not then, though it tempted her sorely. I was then a harmless dalliance, a moment of anticipation, not ready for harvest.

Not until I sought her out, torn by such frustration and such doubt from the fruitless search that she was unable to resist. She tried to savor me secretly, close but disguised.

Until the Xest picture penetrated the Captain and revealed the minionette—