Several uniformed aliens visit me in my rooms. They state that they are on an “inspection tour”; a relatively common undertak­ing. At least five or six times a year we are subjected to “inspec­tion tours”; particularly when the therapists, by some sleight of hand or eye, manage to let us know that the higher administration is not entirely pleased with our revelations. “Tell me,” one of the aliens says, looking at my room, the pictures on the walls, the vagrant books here and there on the shelves, the thin layer of dust on the furniture, “are you happy here? Do you have any complaints?”

“I want to be free,” I say. The “inspection tour” is almost a ritual; certain responses are customary. “I want to know when we will be permitted to return home. I want to know whether or not the ship is safe.”

“Yes, we understand that,” the alien says. “We know that you want to be free. That does not concern us. Are you well cared for, here? Do you feel that your needs are attended? Are you satisfied with your therapist?”

“Yes,” I say. “Yes, I am satisfied with everything. My needs are tended. But I want to be free.”

“Why are there gaps in your information? Why are you hold­ing back certain details from us?”

“I am holding back nothing.”

“We have reviewed the transcripts very carefully. The experiments do not go forward; it is all your fault.” The aliens who conduct the “inspection tours” are not technicians, but by talking in this fashion they become more immediately threatening. “What are you holding out on us?”

“I am holding out nothing. I tell my therapist everything he wants to know.”

“Do you want a new therapist? Do you feel it would be better if someone more forceful were given you?”

“No,” I say. “I am satisfied with my therapist. We are making good progress. I answer everything that he asks me and hold back nothing.”

“I don’t think you understand,” a somewhat larger, far more menacing alien says. He removes some weaponry from the belt around his waist, looks at it, shows it to me. “We are not as in­terested in your welfare as in ours. Things are not moving ahead satisfactorily. We want to know why. We cannot tolerate this forever.”

“I am doing the best I can,” I say. At one time these “inspec­tion tours” terrified me until I came to understand, through certain hints given me by my therapist and certain assumptions which I was able to make on my own, that their function was purely ad­ministrative and had little to do with the normal course of our lives. The therapists remain in sole control of the information-retrieval process; the immediate staff controls our lives but every so often higher levels think that the therapists and others are try­ing to trick them and thus assert their own authority. I lost my fear of the inspections when I understood that under no circum­stances would an alien ever willingly sacrifice any of us; each of us possessed too much valuable knowledge of a speciality and there was little overlap in our various fields. They could only cost themselves a great deal of information by killing any of us. Nev­ertheless, this calm insight, this reflective logic does not remove the fact of physical terror; the revulsion I feel toward these uni­formed ones who lack the wise patience of the therapists. Perhaps the uniformed ones are even right; they are the basic aliens and the therapists simply collaborators, more like us than them. “I do the best I can,” I repeat.

“We are running out of patience,” the menacing alien says. “We can kill all of you and never notice the difference. We have been very tolerant of you; we have taken more time than you deserve. Do you realize that this has gone on for almost three of our years and we are still not at the bottom of it? You must accelerate. We can kill you like roaches.”

“There is no need for this,” the other alien says more quietly and gives me an encouraging tap on the hand. “My colleague, possibly, overstates the case. We are very grateful for what you have told us already and have learned much. But the longer you take to tell us all you know, the longer we have to keep you in the enclosure. This takes time away from us as well, you see. We have no more love for the enclosure than you do. We would like to close it and go back to our own homes. But we cannot as long as you make it necessary for you to stay here.”

“I can only try,” I say. I try not to sound sullen or resentful. This can only re-create antagonism and possibly the tortures. And I am doubly bound to mildness because I cannot, in any way, give them a hint of my plans. Nevertheless it is agony to be submissive before creatures such as this. If we had our memories returned, we would surely know that we are superior.

“That is all we ask,” the alien says. He claps his hands, shrugs, looks around the room. “You have special quarters here,” he says. “The majority of your shipmates do not live nearly so well, you know.”

“I was granted them.”

“It is a privilege that you have been given. We could place you back in a dormitory.”

“I would rather not be in a dormitory.”

“But we won’t because we still value your cooperation. Oth­erwise,” the alien says, looking to the floor, “otherwise, are you content here?”

“Yes.”

“Do you find the meals adequate, the staff satisfactory, the circumstances comfortable? Do you have any illnesses?”

“We never have any illnesses.”

“Yes. I know that.”

“But you might,” the menacing alien says, nodding at the others. The others who have been standing silently against the wall, fondling their armaments nod. “You might indeed.”

“Enough of this,” the other alien says. “Strictly routine,” he murmurs, brushing against me as he turns to leave the room. The aliens leave single file, the last of them not closing my door as he goes into the hall. Down the way I can hear them talking to another of us, one whose voice I do not recognize.

“Are you happy here?” they are asking, and “don’t you think you would rather cooperate than be beaten?” and at the realiza­tion (which I knew all along anyway) that none of this is personal I permit myself to relax, close the door, and return to my tasks. The inspection tour is over for a while. Before there is another we will have fled, leaving those who remain to other investigations that, as far as I am concerned, are strictly their problem.