“The guards are just beyond this door,” Nala says, pointing to one which is half-adjacent. Now, her breathing regular again, she seems to have virtually assumed the responsibility for the mission itself, which is adequate with me. I am still trying to clear the machines out of my head. The whole plot does not seem as solid as it was, even when I constructed it days ago out of gossamer. Now it seems somehow juvenile, preposterous. “They are young,” Nala says. “This is not considered to be a crucial post and this is not an important hour. They are not good guards. We are finding them at a point of least resistance.”

“The plan is impossible,” one of the males says. I recognize my friend, one hundred ninety-nine. “It is insane. We can neither overpower them nor appeal to their sense of mercy. I suggest that we return. We have gone as far as we can this evening; maybe we can discuss the situation some more. I say no further.”

“Coward!” Nala says. The light here is softer; her features are blurred, she looks attractive again. “Go back then. We don’t need you. This is not a question of numbers.”

“He’s right, though,” another male says. “It is quite impossible. I do not know how we were persuaded to do this. I suggest that we give up.”

“Two cowards,” Nala says.

“Three,” says a young female, looking behind us, craning her neck around a corridor. “I was willing to come along to see what the enclosure looked like but this is as far as I can go. I did not think that we would go through with this. I want to return.”

“Well,” Nala says, looking at me. Her eyes glint, I see a shrug. I sense that she is once again returning the situation to me, as the originator. There is some sense of justice to this but I do not know, at this time, if I have the competence to pursue the point. “What do you say, Quir?” she asks. Quite determinedly and precisely she sits. “Do you want to give up?”

“No,” I say. I look at the ceiling and ask for some support. When I think of what my therapist has done to me, I feel a little stronger and say, “We are going to leave the enclosure tonight. All of us. Together. None of us will hold back because we are linked to this together. And there is no returning. The surveillance mechanisms, when they are reviewed, will surely show that we passed this way in groups. They will know that we thought of escaping. It is all over with us anyway.”

“Not if we throw ourselves on the mercy of the therapists,” the first male says. “Not if we confess all and say that you threat­ened us into coming. It will still be better than being killed like vermin when we try this foolish plan.”

“Cowards!” I say, echoing Nala. “All of you are cowards! Don’t you have any respect for our masters, those who sent us here, those who will be the helpless victims of these aliens if we do not warn them? Have you no conviction for your people? Have you no sense of sacrifice and adversity? Has the enclosure removed from you all sense of what it means to be free?”

“Right,” Nala says mildly at my knees on the floor, patting me. “He’s absolutely right.”

“You disgust me,” I say to them. I wonder if I can actually be delivering this speech or whether someone else is projecting my voice against screens. It hardly sounds credible. “All of you disgust me. You are a disgrace to the hierarchy and to the masters. If you do not come with me—if you do not collaborate with me tonight—Iwill be the one to report you to the therapists, because creatures as contemptible as you deserve betrayal.”

They stir, look at me with some interest. I do not know if it is accusation or fear I sense in them but in any case I am getting a response; this line looks hopeful. “There will be no further discussions,” I say. “This is how we got ourselves into this situa­tion to begin with . . . because we had to discuss everything; because we are creatures to whom dialectic comes as easily as cowardice. If, while we were still on the ship after landing, when they had neutralized our devices and prevented us from escaping;if then we had sensed what was going to happen to us and had taken strong, firm actions we would not have been here. But instead there were constant meetings, evaluations, discussions, and before we knew it we were loaded into the enclosure like cattle. This must cease,” I say. “This must cease.”

“All right,” one of the males says. “Enough. You’ve convinced us. But how are we going to get past the guards?”

“We’ll talk to them,” I say, “and if that doesn’t work we will overpower them.”

“Exactly,” says Nala. I look at her quickly and find that her face is averted; a glint of something which might be humor at the corners of her mouth. Does she wink at me? “Exactly,” she says again. “Precisely.”

Slowly we mass together and move toward the door. Behind it now I can hear the scrambling of the guards as they sense noise. We move upon them. Did ever such as us move upon such as them? For the last time I look back at the enclosure and then move forward, uncertainly but firmly. It is not precisely sentiment that overcomes me when I look at the enclosure for the last time but it is not something that denies sentiment either; it is in a peculiar middleground and as we move toward the confrontation I realize that the plan is more serious than I had ever intended, that it is really happening, happening right this moment, and that whatever else, we will never see the enclosure again. I will not go back there. For Plotar. I will not go back there. For Plotar.