“But those aren’t the only differences between us. Your kind has but two sexes, male and female. Our species has four: three which are involved in procreation, and a fourth which might be thought of as our `worker’ caste.”
“In the same way as bees?” Sir George asked, and the dragon-man paused, gazing intently at him. For a moment, his brain felt even more stretched than before, and then the alien nodded.
“Very much like your `bees,’ ” the dragon-man told him. “All of our kind aboard this ship are from that worker caste, which also provides our warriors. We are neither male nor female, as you use the terms, but we are the most numerous sex among our kind. And, like your world’s `bees,’ we exist to serve our `queen.’ ” The dragon-man paused and cocked his head once more. “It’s actually considerably more complex than that. There are nuances and— Well, no matter. The analogy will serve for the moment.”
It seemed to refocus its attention upon Sir George.
“The point is that, unlike your kind, our kind are not entirely what you would think of as individuals. We are more than simple parts of a greater whole, and each of us has his—or her, depending upon how one chooses to regard us—hopes and desires, yet we see into one another’s minds and emotions with such clarity and depth that it’s almost impossible for us to develop a true sense of `self’ as you nontelepathic species do.
“More than that, our `queens’ dominate our lives. According to our own histories—or those the Federation hasn’t completely suppressed, at any rate—that domination was far less complete before the Federation encountered us. The development of our own advanced technology and the society which went with it had apparently inspired our reproductive sexes to extend a greater degree of freedom—of equality, one might say—to the worker caste. But the Federation quickly put a stop to that, for it is the queen’s very domination which makes us so valuable.
“You see, Sir George, unlike your species, our young receive their initial educations from direct mind-to-mind contact with their parents . . . and queens. And during that process, the queen is able to direct us—to `program’ us—in order to direct and constrain our behavior. We believe this was once a survival trait of the species, but it is now the thing which makes us so valuable to the Federation, for guilds like the Commander’s `recruit’ us from our home world. For all intents and purposes, they buy us from our queens, and our queens have no choice but to sell us, for the Federation controls our world completely and we continue to exist only at the Federation’s sufferance.”
“This `programing’ of which you speak,” Sir George said very carefully. “Of what does it consist?”
“Of mental commands we cannot disobey,” the dragon-man said softly. “The guilds specify what commands they wish set upon us, and our queens impress those orders so deeply into our minds that we cannot even contemplate disobeying them. And so, you see, the Federation regards us—rightly—as even more suitable for slaves than your own kind.”
“And yet . . .” Sir George let his voice trail off, and again he received that impression of a fierce and hungry grin.
“And yet we have now communicated with you,” the dragon-man agreed. “You see, our queens are most displeased at the manner in which they are forced to sell their children into slavery. And they are aware that the guilds buy us primarily to be used as the Commander uses us—as security forces for exploration and trade vessels. Even with phase drive, a few ships are lost in every decade or so, of course, but we suspect that not all of them have been lost to, ah, natural causes.”
“Ah?” Sir George looked at the dragon-man with sudden, deep intensity, and the alien’s mental chuckle rumbled deep in his brain.
“Our queen programmed us exactly as the Commander demanded when he bought us for this expedition,” the dragon-man told him. “We must obey any order he may give, and we may not attack or injure our masters. But that is all we must do. We feel quite certain that the Guild also wanted us programmed to protect our masters at all times, but that wasn’t the way the Commander phrased their demands. Nor did he demand that we be programmed so as to be unable to watch others harm them without intervening. We believe—hope!—that over the centuries some of our kind have found ways to turn similar chinks in their programming against their masters. Just as we now hope to turn this against our masters.”