"Of all the species the Federation has encountered, only twenty-two had developed the phase drive themselves, or attained an equivalent technological level, when they were encountered. Those races, more advanced than any others, are full members of the Federation. They sit on its Council, formulate its laws, and enjoy its benefits. The rest of us... do not.
"In the eyes of the Federation, less advanced races have no rights. They exist only for the benefit of the Federation itself, although the Council occasionally mouths a few platitudes about the `advanced race's burden' and the Federation's responsibility to `look after' us inferior races. What it means in practical terms, however, is that we are their property, to be disposed of as they will. As you and your people have become."
The dragon-man paused once more, and Sir George nodded hard. He could taste the other's emotions—his hatred and resentment, burning as hot as Sir George's own—and a distant sort of amazement filled him. Not that he could understand the other, but that under their utterly different exteriors they could be so much alike.
"Some of the subject species, however, are more useful to the `advanced races' than others," the dragon-man resumed after a long, smoldering moment. "Yours, for example, has proven very useful as a means to evade the letter of their Prime Directive, while ours—" the dragon-man seemed to draw a deep breath "—has proven equally valuable as bodyguards and personal servants."
"Why?" Sir George asked. The question could have come out harsh, demanding to know why the dragon-men should be so compliant and submissive, but it didn't. There was too much anger and hatred in the dragon-man's "voice" for that.
"Our species isn't like yours. We are not only telepaths, among ourselves, at least, but also empaths. While we aren't normally able to make other species hear our thoughts, nor able to hear their thoughts, we are able to sense their emotions, their feelings. This makes it very difficult for anyone who might pose a threat to anyone we've been assigned to guard to slip past us.
"But those aren't the only differences between us. Your kind has but two sexes, male and female. Our species has three: two which are involved in procreation, and a third 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 was the queens' very domination which made 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 influence us, to `program' us, in order to direct and constrain our behavior. We believe this was once a survival trait of the species, but now it's 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've now communicated with you," the dragon-man agreed. "You see, our queens are most displeased at the manner in which so many generations of them have been 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 those which have turned up missing 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's 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 his 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 programing against their masters. Just as we now hope to turn this against our masters."
"Ah," Sir George said again, and this time his voice was dark and hungry.
"Indeed. And that brings us to your species, Sir George. You see, your kind are unique in at least two ways. Most importantly, in terms of our present needs, your minds operate on a... frequency quite close to our own. We realized that from the beginning, though our masters never asked us about it, and so we weren't required to tell them. It's far from a perfect match, of course, and to communicate with you as we are required the linked efforts of several of our kind. Nor could we do it while you were awake without immediately alerting our masters. Simply establishing the initial contact point rendered you unconscious for twelve of your minutes, and we hadn't previously dared risk causing such a thing to happen."