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place had changed all the rules. I hadn’t really thought about it that way, but it had. I’d dropped my guard, and so had she. We thought we could beat the place as a team, that we were stronger together.
    But the ship had had other plans. My black hatred for this monstrous machine was deeper than ever. I dearly hoped I would be given a chance to throttle the evil minds that had devised this place and these cruel tests.
    The ship remained silent, and the doors remained closed. I sat in my cube, uncaring. Was it giving me some grief-time? Was it programmed to allow for recovery after the worst shocks? It had done that before, I realized. It had waited until I had bandaged my wounds after fighting the centaurs. It had given Sandra and I time enough to talk and team up.
    I thought about the centaurs. I had begun to suspect that they were not behind all this. Some other creature was. Something else had set this up. I could not see how all of this made sense if the crew would endanger themselves. Perhaps the centaurs were only trained dogs. Or perhaps they were captives from their own world, like I was. For all I knew, the second one was the relative of the first, and I was the evil ape-creature that had cruelly killed them with insane bloodlust, from their point of view.
    I felt sick. For the first time, my resolve was weakening.
    “The subject will submit to interrogation,” said the voice, speaking up again at last. It said these words exactly as it had said them before. That got me thinking, hazily. Repeating oneself exactly, that was the kind of thing computers did. Being a computer scientist by training, I sensed I might be dealing with an artificial intelligence. This was not encouraging. Computers weren’t known for their mercy.
    I scowled at the floor. Soon, as I said nothing, it began to heat up.
    “As I said before, I’ll answer questions only if you will let me ask some of my own.”
    There was a pause, then: “Tenacity demonstrated.”
    A door opened. I heaved a sigh and struggled to my feet. How many of these tests were there?
    I cautiously stepped forward. The next room wasn’t a cubical. It was larger and rectangular with a domed ceiling. I suspected every inch of it. I walked cautiously around this new cage, prepared to leap away from any threat.
    “All tests complete. You have been selected for advancement.”
    “Wonderful,” I said.
    “You may now command us.”
    I paused. Another test?
    “Command you?”
    “Yes.”
    It was talking back. We were in a new room, but I had been fooled before. I thought about it. What if I only got to give one command? What if that was the test, to figure out what I would do in this situation? What did I want? Until now, there had been nothing resembling conversation with these monsters. I hated to admit it, but this change gave me hope. Somewhere deep down I believed it was all another test, however. The floor might vanish at any second.
    I thought about asking it to let me go. That seemed simple enough. I’d have to be careful, or it might just dump me out a mile high over a rocky mountain range or the Antarctic. Each time I looked down, it seemed like the ship was over a different spot.
    I wondered then how long I had to think it over before it considered me a loser. Perhaps I needed to give it a command. Anything, just to make it happy. But what should I tell it to do?
    Then I had it. Why not go for broke?
    “I command you to go back and pick up my children and revive them,” I said. It was crazy, but who knew what their tech was capable of? Maybe, just maybe, there was a thread of mercy in these beings, or at least some strange concept of honor amongst them. Maybe they gave every contest winner a single wish, a prize for having won through to the end. I tried not to let my hopes rise, but I couldn’t help it.
    “Specify.”
    “Specify?” I said. “What do you mean, specify? ”
    “Who are your children?”
    “The people you killed. Back behind us. You