"It's no proposition, it's a statement of fact."
Cragin could feel the sweat behind his ears start to roll down his neck, and his clothes were beginning to stick to his back again. But he had been in jams before. When you couldn't shoot, you had to talk. About anything that came into your head, but you had to talk.
"Servants of the second rank do not err, Earthman. Upon reexamining my logic, I find it sound. Yet in the process of carrying it to its ultimate, I conclude that inasmuch as the mathematical possibility exists that you are capable of being tested successfully for a servant of the menial ranks, a final decision warrants the deferment of your destruction pending administration of such examination."
"Failure to qualify as a servant will mean your destruction."
There was near hysteria in Lin Griffin's voice as it broke the spell Cragin's argument had created.
"Cragin, you can't realize what you're doing! You're selling us into sl--"
"Service, Lin Griffin," he cut her off. He knew he was bruising her arm with the quick pressure of his fingers. "Service to the Owners."
Cragin had little idea of how long they had flown, and none of the number of continua through which they had warped. They had been allowed to sleep, and upon awakening, had received food. That they were under guard was only to be sensed.
"They can afford to take us for granted," he muttered. He felt for the butts of his guns; they were still at his hips.
"Don't give it a second thought. I know when I've had it, and they know I do."
Cragin looked about the confines of the small metal cubicle in which they had been quartered as though trying to see through its walls for another glimpse of one of the flagship's crew. The servants of grade three were as unlike men as their cloaked captor had been similar. But not less incredible than other creatures he had seen. Only--intelligent. That, if nothing more. Cragin mused with a grimace.
"I could use a different word, kid, but it would come to the same thing. If IQ meant the social register around here, even the snottiest ancestors either of us ever had would look like only moderately successful bums. They got us where the gray matter's short. Of that I am convinced."