“A mealtime passed before he spoke. ‘I am White Mask, rank of Strategist. I have what you need.’

“They knew me for what I was, of course. I need not ask what he meant. I asked, ‘How?’

“‘I only had an instant,’ he said. ‘I took what was close at hand.’ There was nothing in his hands except steel bars, and I wondered where he could have concealed any tool at all. ‘We know too little of these prey-who-would-fight. One of your kind could tell us more of them, if he does not die! So, I have what will heal you, and be glad we came in time!’

“In time? Eleven years taking Sthondat extract, then a quarter-year without! I’d be dead without my captors’ medical machines. Now my body was beginning to recover from eleven years of abuse!

“But I said only, ‘We are observed,’ and then, ‘We are studied.’

“White Mask turned to the earless one and rasped a command.

“Earless screamed and lashed out. The one-legged one snatched at the dying one’s ankle and scuttled backward on all threes while the others fought.

“Those two were clumsy, unused to low gravity. They fought more in the air than on the ground, and every blow threw them apart. Earless was massive and powerful, but twice White Mask trapped him in the air and battered him like a slashball. A flurry of blow-and-kick put them between the windows and One Leg, and that was when One Leg threw something to me.

“It was what I expected, a small zip bag, half empty. We had no pouches, of course, so I hid it in my mouth, betting that it was watertight. I waited for feeding time.

“Food arrived in pouches; bowls were not suited for the moon’s low gravity. The pouches came on a conveyer line. No human would come near any kzin without a good deal of care. I positioned my dinner pouch to hide the zip bag, looked in and found Sthondat lymph preparation. I swallowed less than a normal dose, then lay down. After so long I didn’t know how it might affect me.