“ ‘They must have pressurized vehicles,’ White Mask said.

“I arrived in one,” I said, “a box with rockets—”

“If we can take a ship and an alien pilot, can you read the pilot’s mind? Well enough to fly the ship?”

I said, “I’ve seen their input keyboards. Our fingers aren’t small enough.” I saw his thought, Telepath will try to talk us into sloth and cowardice. I said, “Take two of their writing sticks, one in each fist, and you could punch commands on their keys. But you need a pilot, not just some random prey. I’ll have to find one for you.”

“Await word,” White Mask said.

“That night I listened to them working up an escape plan. They needn’t shout at me; I heard their thoughts. A working spacecraft would be ideal, but a damaged or empty ship might still send a message, and a mindtaster could tell them how to do that too. They had to integrate Creditor’s Telepath into any plans at all.

“I saw their image of me every time my designation was spoken: Remember he can’t fight. He has to live until we’re in free space, and that means we move fast. We must be loose before that evil goop he uses runs out, or else we’re here for keeps. Why didn’t you snatch a full pouch? Because our own crazy Telepath, shredded when a patch of hull turned to flying shards, let the flack shred his carry-pouch tool. White Mask’s memory forced upon me a diminishing radio howl from within a globe of bloody froth, frozen at the surface, lobes of fluid breaking through as blood boiled and froze and expanded.

“In the morning White Mask called to me. ‘Talk to them. Give them a reason to move us out of this box! If we were inside together we could do something. Not you, Telepath. Stay where you are. We’ll free you after.’

“I had been thinking, too. I said, ‘Toolmaster is dying. I can feel him disappearing into dreams, and even the dreams are fading. Tell the humans. They will try to save him.’