“Next, the water-planet, third from the medium star,” gurgles the attendant. “Your judgment, Arbitrix?”

But before she opens her mouths, the Arbitrix is distracted by a philotic lasso: her consciousness snatched, stuffed and bound into a tiny biped body. She’s born wailing. She learns human language and human love, the colors of blood and sunlight. She swims and bleeds, sings, grows taller; she discovers the Secret Karass of Telepaths and their cruel but necessary capture of her mind, one last desperate attempt to save their race. She ages, loses, aches, dies.

“Arbitrix?” says the attendant, uncertain.

“Smash it,” she grates.