“You see, I have some reason to believe that Josich knows who, or at least what, I am. Therefore, I am a priority to be captured, if possible, and killed if not. Remember that Josich was in many ways a confederate and co-criminal conspirator of your— um, Ari’s—uncle Jules Wallinchky. He, or more properly now, she—although that makes precious little difference to a Chalidanger unless they are making more Chalidangers— knew quite a bit about the other criminal empire with which it often had to deal. The Chalidang intelligence network here is as good as those back in our old corner of the universe. Also, I just made a damned fool of them. That counts against me, you know.”

“I can imagine,” Ming responded dryly. “What will you do? Build yourself an armor-plated prison?”

“Being inside a single room is not the same torture for me as it might be for you,” Core pointed out. “Until I arrived here and managed to ‘pull this off,’ I had never moved at all except in that the planet moves. To one who always experienced everything second- or thirdhand, even a very limited life in an organic body is liberation. We have determined that I will do the most good and be the most secure remaining here at the embassy in Zone. I will be able to make use of this sophisticated if very alien computer system, keep an eye on what’s happening, and contact anyone as needed. There is also the pressing problem that all Kalindans who are not already female are turning female. They have been desperately taking sperm from those not yet changed, but analysis seems to show there are no viable male sperm in the samples, either. You can see that if we do not solve that one, the rest is moot. It has been speculated that the Well World master control computer would not permit a species to go extinct, but I believe that this is not true. These were laboratories to prove or disprove racial viability. Dying out is one effect that must be accepted as a valid scientific result.”