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Strong bindings held N'Chaka fast to the flat, hard surface whereon he lay.

There was too much light above him. He could barely make out the face that leaned and looked down into his own. It moved and pulsed and swam with the movement of his blood, a handsome face cut from burnished gold, with a crest of hair like curled wires. There were other faces, dim in the shadows at the sides, but only that one mattered. He could not remember whose face it was. Only that it mattered.

There was pain again, the hollow jab of a needle.

N'Chaka snarled, and fought the straps.

The golden face asked a question.

N'Chaka heard. He did not wish to answer, but he had no choice. The poison running in him forced him to answer.

He spoke, in the clicks and grunts of a language so primitive that it was only a little more complex than the speech of apes.

Penkawr-Che, the golden man, said, "He reverts to that every time. Interesting. Bring Ashton."

Ashton was brought.

The question was repeated, and the answer.

"You're his foster-father. Do you know what language he is speaking?"

"The aboriginals of Sol One speak that tongue. He was reared by them after his own parents were killed. Until he came into my care—at fourteen, or thereabouts—that was the only speech he knew."

"Can you translate?"

 

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"I was one of the administrators of Sol One. Part of my duty was to protect the abos from the miners. I wasn't always successful. But I knew them well." He translated meticulously, and smiled. "There are no words in that vocabulary for the things you want to know about."

"Ah," said Penkawr-Che. "Well, then. Let me think."

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Framed