"And yet, here we both are," Sagan said.

"Here we are," Cainen agreed. "I wish we had met under other circumstances, Lieutenant. I would very much like to study you."

"I don't know how to respond to that," Sagan said. " 'Thank you' doesn't seem appropriate, considering what being studied by you would probably mean."

"You could be kept alive," Cainen said.

"Oh, joy," Sagan said. "But you might get your wish, after a fashion. You must know by now that you are a prisoner—for real this time, and you will be for the rest of your life."

"I figured that out when you started telling me things I could report back to my government," Cainen said. "Like the rock trick. Although I assumed you were going to kill me."

"We humans are a pragmatic people, Administrator Cainen," Sagan said. "You have knowledge we can use, and if you were willing to be cooperative, there's no reason you couldn't continue your study of human genetics and brains. Just for us instead of for the Rraey."

"All I would have to do is betray my people," Cainen said.

"There is that," Sagan allowed.

"I think I would rather die first," Cainen said.

"With all due respect, Administrator, if you truly believed that, you probably wouldn't have shot that Eneshan who was trying to kill you earlier today," Sagan said. "I think you want to live."

"You may be right," Cainen said. "But whether you are right or not, child, I am done talking to you now. I've told you everything I'm going to tell you of my own free will."

Sagan smiled at Cainen. "Administrator, do you know what humans and Rraey have in common?"

"We have a number of things in common," Cainen said. "Pick one."

"Genetics," Sagan said. "I don't need to tell you that human genetic sequencing and Rraey genetic sequencing are substantially different in the details. But on the macro level we share certain similarities, including the fact that we receive one set of genes from one parent and the other from the other. Two-parent sexual reproduction."