Nuisance Value
Astounding Science Fiction – January 1957
(1957)*
Eric Frank Russell
illustrated by Freas

It isn't the size, or even the danger, a mosquito represents that makes it so hard to settle down peacefully when one's in the room; it's the noise and the irritation. And a professionally trained irritator could be most distracting ...

-

	The ship was small, streamlined and little better than junk. It lay uselessly in deep grass, its term of service finished and over. The name Elsie II was engraved either side of its bow. There was no romantic connection, the cognomen being derived from L.C.2, or Long-range Craft Number Two. At its midpoint it bore the silver star of the Space Union and that meant nothing either—for it was now in enemy possession.

	Also in the hands of the foe was the complete crew of seven, all Terrans. They posed in a lugubrious line, tired, fed up, deprived of weapons, and waited for someone to push them around.

	Twenty Kastans stood guard over them while three others sought through the ship for anyone who might have remained in hiding. They were very humanlike, these Kastans, except in matter of size. The shortest of them topped the tallest Terran by head and shoulders. They ranged from seven and a half to eight feet in height.

	The Terrans waited in glum silence while big, heavy-feet tramped through, their stricken vessel from bow to stern. Finally an officer squeezed out the air lock, followed by two lesser ranks.

	Strolling importantly to the group, the officer spoke to a Kastan whose left sleeve was adorned with three crimson circles. His language seemed ;to be composed of snorts and grunts. Next, he faced the prisoners and switched to fluent Extralingua.

	"Who was in command of this ship?"

	"I was," responded Frank Wardle.

	"Sir."

	Wardle gazed at him cold-eyed.

	"Say, 'Sir', when you speak to me," ordered the officer, impatiently.

	"What is your rank?" inquired Wardle, unimpressed.

	The other put a spade-sized hand on a holster holding a huge machine-pistol. "That is no concern of yours. You are a prisoner. You will do as you are told—as from now."

	"I will say, 'sir', to an officer of superior rank," informed Wardle in the tones of one who knows his rights. "I will also accept his ruling as to whether or not that form of address is reserved only for military superiors."

	Chronic uncertainty afflicted the hearer. Knowing his own superiors he could give a shrewd guess as to whose side they'd take in any dispute concerning their rights and privileges. The curse of being an officer is that one is outranked by other officers. Maybe he'd better let the matter drop, it being a dangerous subject to dwell upon. He glanced at the onlooking troops to see whether they were aware that he had been defied. Their faces were blank, uncomprehending.

	Reasserting himself by making his tones harsh and authoritative, he said to Wardle, "I am not disposed to argue with a mere prisoner. You have plenty left to learn. And very soon you will learn it."

	"Yes, teacher," agreed Wardle.

	Ignoring that, the officer went on, "You will follow this sergeant. You will walk behind him in single file. You will be guarded on both sides and in the rear. If any one of you attempts to escape the escort will shoot—to kill. Do you understand?"

	"I do."

	"Then so inform your companions."

	"There is no need. They understand Extralingua. On Terra one gets educated."

	"Also on Kasta," the officer riposted, "as you are about to discover." He turned to the sergeant. "Take them away."

-

	The crew of the Elsie marched off, obediently following the sergeant. Three guards on either side kept pace with them at ten feet distance, just too far for a sudden jump and a successful snatch at a gun. Four more trudged weightily behind.

	They struck a wide path between enormous trees and moved in contemplative silence. A thing like a small frilled lizard scuttled along a branch fifty feet up, stared down at them beady-eyed and uttered a few sympathetic squeaks. Nobody took any notice.

	The sergeant's yard-wide shoulders swung in front of them while his size twenty boots went thud-thud-thud. There was no difficulty in keeping up with him because his slow pace compensated for his great strides. The escort's boots also thudded on the right, the left and in the rear. The Terrans felt like pygmies trapped by elephants in human form.

	Eventually they reached a small encampment consisting of half a dozen huts set in a clearing. Here, the seven were herded into a truck, a troop-carrier with seats along both sides. They sat in line on one side, their feet dangling a few inches above the floor. The guards squatted on the other, machine-pistols in laps.

	The truck roared to life, pulled out, rocked and swayed along a dirt road, reached a wide, paved artery, sped at top pace for three hours. During this time the Terrans said not a word but their eyes absorbed the passing scenery as though memorizing it for all time.

	With a sudden turn to the right that shot the prisoners onto the floor the truck lumbered into a military center and stopped before a long stone building. The guards guffawed deep in their chests, nudged the struggling captives with their boots. A bunch of uniformed Kastans gathered around and gaped curiously as the Terrans dismounted and were conducted inside.

	The sergeant lined them up against a wall, snorted and grunted a few warning words to the guard, hastened through a doorway. After a while an officer stuck his head out the same doorway, surveyed the silent seven and withdrew. A bit later the sergeant reappeared, urged them along a high-ceilinged corridor and into a room in which two officers were seated behind a long desk.

	For twenty minutes the officers fiddled around with papers and pointedly ignored the arrivals. That keep-'em-waiting technique was deliberate and of malice aforethought, being calculated to impress upon the prisoners that they were trash to be swept up at leisure.

	Finally one of the officers looked up, made a grimace of displeasure, pushed his papers to one side. He nudged his companion who also condescended to become aware of alien company.

	"Who speaks Kastan?" asked the first officer, in that language.

	No reply.

	"Well, do any of you speak Extralingua?" he persisted.

	"They all do, sir," chipped in the sergeant without waiting for anyone else to reply.

	"So! Then let's get on with the interrogation."

	He pointed a pen at random. "You there—what's your name?" 

	"Robert Cheminais." 

	"Number?" 

	"105697." 

	"Rank?" 

	"Captain."

	The second officer scribbled all this on a sheet while the pen shifted and aimed at the next one.

	"And you?"

	"William Holden."

	"Number?"

	"112481."

	"Rank?"

	"Captain."

	Another move as the pen selected the third one.

	"Frank Wardle. 103882. Captain."

	Then the rest in rapid succession. 

	"James Foley. 109018. Captain." 

	"Alpin McAlpin. 122474. Captain."

	"Henry Casasola. 114086. Captain."

	"Ludovic Pye. 101323. Captain."

	"Seven captains on one ship," commented the officer. He let go a loud sniff. "That's the way the Terrans run their navy. Everyone a captain—if he isn't an admiral. And doubtless every one of them has forty medals." His sour eye examined the captives, then picked on Wardle. "How many medals have you got?"

	"None—yet."

	"Yet? You've a fat lot of hopes of getting one now. Not unless we give you one, having become crazy." He waited for an answer that did not come, went on, "But you are a captain?"

	"That's right."

	"And all the others are captains?" 

	"Correct."

	"Then who commanded the ship?"

	"I did/' said Wardle.

	"In that case," rasped the officer, "you can tell me something. You can tell me exactly why you're here."

	"We're here because we've been made prisoners."

	"I know that much, fool! I want to know why a Terran vessel has appeared in this locality where none has ventured before."

	"We were on a long-range reconnaissance patrol. Our engines went haywire, propulsion became dangerously erratic, we were forced down. Your troops grabbed us before we could make repairs." Wardle gave a shrug of complete resignation. "Our luck ran out. That's war."

	"Your luck ran out? Seems to me that you were let down by inferior equipment. Our space-navy would not tolerate that sort of thing. Our standard of efficiency is pretty high." He gazed steadily at his listener, continued, "Experts are on the way to examine these Terran engines. I don't suppose they'll discover anything worth learning."

	Wardle offered no remark.

	"So you were on a spying trip, eh? It hasn't done you much good, has it?"

	No answer.

	"We've a very useful labor force of four hundred thousand Union prisoners. The addition of seven Terrans won't make much difference one way or the other. You are undersized and puny creatures." He studied each of the seven in turn, his lips pursed in contempt. "However, we shall add you to the crowd. In time of war every little helps—even a bunch of weak-muscled captains." He turned to the stolidly listening sergeant. "Have them shipped to Gathin forthwith. I will forward their papers immediately we've dealt with them here."

	He made a gesture of dismissal. The sergeant led the seven back to the truck, chivvied them aboard, look a seat facing them with the guard beside him, guns in laps. The truck lurched ahead, got onto the main road, hit up top speed. Its axles emitted a high-pitched whine.

	Holden, hawk-nosed and lean-faced, bent forward, said to the sergeant in Extralingua, "Where's Gathin?"

	"Up there." The other jerked a hammerlike thumb toward the sky. "Twelve days' flight. Anthracite mines, lead mines, machine-shops. Plenty of work for the dead." He showed big teeth. "Those taken in war are as dead. Therefore one should not be taken."

	"Do you understand Terran?" asked Holden, switching to that language.

	The sergeant looked blank.

	Radiating a cordial smile, Holden said, "You dirty big stinking bum! Hail the Union!"

	"Please?" said the sergeant, answering the smile with a cracked one.

	"You flatfooted, hamhanded numbskull," responded Holden, oozing amiability. "May all your children have violent squints and may you be smothered to death in a heap of manure. Hail the Union!"

	"Please?" repeated the sergeant, baffled but gratified.

	"Take it easy, Bill," warned Wardle.

	"Shaddap!" Switching back to Extralingua, Holden said to the sergeant, "I will teach you a little Terran if you wish."

	The sergeant approved, thinking that every item of education was a step nearer to officership. Lessons commenced while the truck rocked along. Prisoners and guards listened with interest as Holden carefully enunciated words and phrases and the sergeant got them perfectly.

	Such fluency had been gained that at the spaceport farewells were, exchanged in the specified manner.

	Holden, giving a vaudeville salute, "Drop dead, you fat rat!"

	The sergeant, proud of his linguistic ability, "Thank you, my lord! Hail the Union!"

-

	They trudged down the ship's gangway, stared at their new surroundings, and Wardle said in an undertone, "Item one: we've arrived without getting our throats slit. Item two: we now know exactly where Gathin is."

	"Yair," agreed Holden. "We know where it is. But it's going to be easier to get in than get out."

	"Oh, I don't know," opined Wardle, airily. "We've got a considerable advantage in that they won't expect us to try. Remember, chum, it's a cosmos-wide convention that a prisoner of war is a member of the living dead, properly resigned to his fate. Everyone recognizes that fact excepting Terrans—who are wholly crazy."

	"Not all Terrans had that viewpoint once," offered Holden. "Around the time they learned to walk on their hind legs the Japanese considered capture more disgraceful than death. Some went so far as to commit suicide first chance they got."

	"That was a heck of a long time ago and—"

	"Silence!" bawled a paunchy Kastan who was standing near the bottom of the gangway with the inevitable guard in attendance. He glowered at the seven as they lined up in front of him. "So you are Terrans, eh? We have heard your kind mentioned by the Stames and Aluesines who"—he put on a grin of self-satisfaction—"are now our slaves by right of conquest. But they did not say you were so small. Or have we been sent a group of selected dwarfs?"

	"Seven dwarfs, sonny," said Holden. "Snow White's coming on the next boat."

	"Snow White?" The paunchy one frowned, consulted a wad of papers in his hand, searching through them one by one. "I have here documents for seven Terrans. There is nothing about an eighth due on this ship or the next."

	"She must have missed it," said Holden, helpfully.

	"She? You mean a female was captured with you?"

	"Evidently she wasn't. She took to the woods." Holden put on a look of grudging admiration. "I wouldn't have thought she'd have got away with it."

	Paunchy took a deep breath. "Did you inform our Interrogation Center about this Snow White?"

	"No, sonny. They didn't ask."

	"Imbeciles!" he spat out. "Now we shall have to send a signal to Kasta and set up a widespread hunt for her. It will put our forces to much time and trouble."

	"Hallelujah!" said Holden, fervently.

	"What does that mean?"

	"It is much to be deplored."

	"You are right," agreed Paunchy, with some menace. "And in due course she will do much deploring." His eyes shifted along the rank, settled on Ludovic Pye. "Well, what are you laughing about? Is your brain afflicted?"

	"He suffers from hysterics," put in Holden. "It is the shock of capture."

	"Humph!" said Paunchy, openly contemptuous. "Weak in mind as well as in body. The Aluesines and Stames have more moral fiber, low-grade life-forms though they be. They collapse from physical weakness but none have gone mad." He spat on the ground, vigorously. "Terrans!" Then he motioned toward a nearby truck. "Get in!"

	They got in. It was the same procedure as before. They sat along one side with a line of surly guards lacing them. The truck set off through a countryside different from that of Kasta. Here, trees were smaller though still big by Earth-Standards. They grew more thickly and soon resembled a jungle through which the road cut in a wide, perfectly straight line.

	Halfway to their destination they passed a gang of Aluesines toiling at the roadside. They were human-shaped characters nearly as tall as the Kastans but of skinnier physique. They had slot-shaped pupils, like cats, and by nature were nocturnal. Only they could know the torture of slaving in full sunlight.

	The Aluesines observed the Terrans without interest ©r surprise. Every one of them had the appalling apathy of a creature resigned by custom to his fate and who takes for granted a similar attitude on the part of all others.

	Holden, who was seated near the tailboard, leaned over it as the truck roared past and let go a yell of, "Floreat Aluesia!"

	It caused no visible excitement. A guard leaned forward and belted Holden on the knee with his gun-butt.

	"Fosham gubitsch!" he growled in incomprehensible Kastan.

	"Hush yo mouf!" said Holden in equally incomprehensible Terran.

	"Shut your own!" ordered Wardle. "We'll have trouble enough before we are through."

	"You will not talk in dwarf-language," chipped in Paunchy, cutting a scowl into seven parts and handing a piece to each. "All speech will be in Extralingua. That is, until you have learned Kastan."

	"Hah!" said Holden, determined to have the last word.

-

	The officer was big even for one of his race. He wore a skin-tight uniform of dark green ornamented with silver braid. A couple of small white arrows decorated the flap of his top pocket. His face was broad, heavy and slightly gross, his expression severe.

	"I am the commander of this prison. Over you I hold the power of pain and suffering, of life and death. Therefore you will strive to please me at all times. Henceforth that is your only aim, your sole purpose of existence—to please me."

	The seven stood in silence as he did a bit of important strutting up and down the carpet.

	"We have not had any Terrans before and now that we have I don't think much of them. All the same, we shall make full use of such work as you are capable of doing. That is our proper reward for victory and your proper penalty for defeat."

	Holden opened his mouth, closed it as Wardle's heel rammed down on his toes.

	"You will be conducted to your quarters," concluded the officer. "In the morning you will be cross-examined concerning your training and aptitudes. You will then be assigned appropriate tasks." He sat down, leaned back in his chair, put on an expression of boredom. "Take them away, sergeant."

	They were marched out in single file, made to wait an hour in the middle of a great concrete yard. Barrack-blocks of solid stone reared ten floors high on each side of the yard. Beyond the blocks rose the wall to a height of sixty feet. The whole place seemed empty, there being no other prisoners in sight.

	Eventually a guard-major appeared, took over from the sergeant, led them into the right-hand block and up stone steps to the sixth floor. Then along a corridor and into a large room with bare stone walls.

	"Do you understand Kastan?"

	They stared at him without response.

	"Extralingua?"

	"Yes," said Wardle, speaking for the bunch.

	The guard-major drew himself up to full height, expanded his chest and gave forth. "I am guard-major Slovits. I command this block. Over you I hold the power of life and death. Therefore you will strive to please me at all times."

	"Henceforth that is your only aim," prompted Holden.

	"Eh?"

	"I was remarking that we understand," explained Holden, blank-faced. "Our only aim shall be to please you, Guard-Major Slobovitch."

	"Slovits," corrected Slovits. He carried on, "You will remain here until the great gong sounds outside. You will then parade in the yard along with the others for your evening meal. Is that understood?"

	"Yes," said Wardle, beating the gabby Holden to any further remarks.

	"There will be no jostling of other prisoners, no unruly fighting for food. Disorder will be cured with the whip. Is that understood?"

	"Yes, Guard-Major Slobovitch," assured Holden, beating Wardle out of his role as spokesman.

	"Slovits!" said Slovits, glowering at him. He stumped out, slamming the door behind him.

-

	Wardle prophesied to Holden, "One of these days you'll be trapped by your own trap."

	"That's happened already. I volunteered for this nutty mission, didn't I?"

	"You did. Let it be a warning to you."

	There were twelve beds in the room, each consisting of plain wooden planks fastened to a wooden framework. The beds were nine feet in length and covered with one nine-foot blanket slightly threadbare and none too clean. At the end of the room was a faucet and one washbasin.

	"Every modern inconvenience," growled Foley, to whom the chief curse of military service was lack of comfort.

	"Twelve beds," observed Alpin McAlpin. "I wonder if that means we're getting some Stames or Aluesines with us. If so, it'll make contact easy right at the start."

	"We'll have to wait and see," said Wardle. He strolled to the door, tried it. The door held firm. "Self-locking and solid metal. Hm-m-m! Wouldn't have surprised me if they'd left it open."

	He crossed to one of the four windows. There were no bars to impede exit. The windows were hinged and opened without trouble. A baby elephant could have clambered through and escaped—given that it had been born with wings.

	The others joined him for a look-see. Immediately beneath them the side of the block dropped six floors to the ground. Above, it rose four to the top. There were no ridges, no ledges, no breaks other than those provided by window-gaps.

	At bottom lay a concrete space of bone-breaking hardness, forty feet wide, terminated by the outer wall. Evidently they'd been accommodated on the side of the block farthest from the yard, though whether or not this would prove an advantage remained to be seen.

	The great exterior wall of the prison soared a full sixty feet from ground, its top being a couple of feet below the floor-level of their room. Thus they could look down upon the top, also see much of the country beyond.

	As nearly as they could judge from their vantage-point the wall's top was about five feet wide. On each side one foot of this width was fringed with a triple' row of metal spikes about six inches long and spaced three inches apart. The middle three feet formed a sentry-walk along which armed guards mooched from time to time with their attention directed mostly outward rather than inward.

	Foley said to Holden, "Now there's a choice set-up for knocking them off the easy way."

	"How d'you mean?"

	"You call the attention of a sentry from here. He looks this way, sees your horrible face. He faints at the sight of it, collapses on the spikes and gets impaled."

	"Wittiest speech I've heard in years," said Holden, sourly. "Look at me rolling all over the floor."

	"Shut up, you bums," ordered Wardle. He left the window, sat on the edge of a bed, counted off his fingers as he continued talking and made his points one by one. "Let's review the situation."

	They assented, sat around and listened.

-

	"The know-alls on Earth said the Union is handicapped by an alien psychology which applies to enemies and allies alike. In this respect we Terrans appear to be unique—though someday we may encounter a yet unknown life-form that uses what we regard as hoss-sense. Correct?"

	They nodded.

	"All right. This alien viewpoint asserts that to be taken prisoner is to be eternally disgraced. Even a released prisoner refuses to go back-home; his family prefers to consider him dead for keeps rather than admit the shame of him. So there's no point in any prisoner attempting to escape except for the purpose of committing a nice, quiet, uninterrupted suicide. That gives us an advantage in dealing with enemies—but it's a hell of a handicap to our allies. Eh?"

	Again they nodded.

	"The Stames' and Aluesines' casualties consist only of killed and wounded. Officially there are none missing. So they've a powerful army here which, they say, does not exist." He paused, added, "And they say Terrans are crazy!"

	"If we aren't," put in Holden, "why are we here?"

	Taking no notice, Wardle went on, "The know-alls promised that we'd find ourselves in circumstances shaped by the enemy's unavoidable supposition that we would never dream of escaping for any purpose other than that of self-destruction. They said, for instance, that we'd be searched for weapons and documents but not for escape material. So far, they've proved right, haven't they?"

	"Yair," said Holden, feeling around for a pocket-watch that wasn't a pocket-watch.

	"They said that all the enemy would demand of us would be absolute obedience because the only problem he has in dealing with captives is that of reluctance to work. Naturally a gump who considers himself dead isn't going to sweat any harder than he has to. So the Kastans have never experienced any trouble with prisoners other than of two kinds, namely, slow working and occasional suit ides. They've never come up against ridicule, sabotage, organized escapes or suchlike. Not sharing our state of mind, they don't and can't anticipate any difficulty in handling a few Terrans." He stopped, rubbed his chin thoughtfully and asked, "Do you fellows think the way we've been handled so far shows that the know-alls were again right?"

	"Yair," said Holden, the others agreeing with him.

	"Good! Then what we've got to do next is check up on whether they're correct about everything else because, if not, we're in a real jam—and we could remain in it until death us do part."

-

	He counted another finger as he made the next point. "The bigbrains claim that Kastan prisons should be fully as well-built as any of ours but with one significant difference: defenses will be against attack from outside rather than mass escape from inside. The Kastans expect the former but not the latter, taking it for granted that the Union's motive would not be to release their own men but rather to rob the Kastan economy of a valuable labor force."

	"It's all a lot of long-range supposition," put in Alpin McAlpin. "I wouldn't take any Kastan's mentality for granted on the strength of some Terran expert's guesses. We've a lot of checking-up to do before we know where we're going."

	"That's what I'm getting at," said Wardle, staring hard at Holden. "Let's be humble and obedient for a while. Let's become willing and patient beasts of burden while keeping our eyes skinned for confirmatory evidence. From now on we'll confer every night and correlate whatever data we've gathered."

	"Why give me the hard eye?" demanded Holden, bristling at him.

	"You're a bit too full of bounce, chum. You're supposed to play a part and you're a bad actor."

	"Nuts to that! I consider myself a cut above these Kastans, having been conceived in holy wedlock."

	"So do we all. But we must conceal the fact for as long as seems expedient. Good manners is the art of pretending that one is not superior."

	Foley let go with a violent laugh at that, and said, "You're like a troop of Tibetans."

	"Why?" asked Wardle.

	"You're always good for a few yaks."

	A huge gong clamored somewhere across the yard.

	"Food," added Foley, starting the line-up by the door. "Prison food. Let's see you laugh this lot off"."

	The door clicked open, they went through into an empty corridor, clattered down the stairs and into the yard. Here a guard met them, handed each man one circular wooden bowl and one wooden spoon.

	"You will keep those and take care of them. Loss or damage will earn punishment." He pointed across the concrete, his forefinger the size of a banana. "At all mealtimes you will attend with those Stames. You will not join any of the other groups unless ordered to do so."

-

	They traipsed across the yard, tagged on at the end of the indicated line of Stames. Ahead of them the line wound snakelike a couple of hundred yards, went through a gap between barrack-blocks and round to the cookhouse at back. Nearby were four other lines slowly shuffling forward, one wholly of Stames, two of Aluesines and one of mixed species.

	The Stames also were humanlike, towering head and shoulders above the Terrans. This unanimity of shape surprised nobody. Every intelligent lifeform yet encountered had been found only on planets approximating more or less to Terra's conditions, and every one had been of the same shape with no more than minor variations. A library of books had been written on the subject, with such titles as Cosmic Domination of the Simian Structure.

	The similarities served to emphasize the differences. The Stames were first-class lighters in their own area but not aggressively warlike as were the Kastans. They were not nocturnal like the Aluesines. They lacked any appreciation of the ludicrous such as is enjoyed by Terrans. They were a serious-minded, humorless lifeform, producers of broody literature and moody music.

	Holden nudged the one immediately in front of him. The Stame turned round, looked down upon him from his greater height. He had a mournful face, a lugubrious expression, and resembled a founder-member of the Society of the Disenchanted.

	"How's the chow here, Happy?" asked Holden.

	"Little and bad."

	"It would be."

	"So now they are taking Terrans," commented the Stame. "They have progressed that far, houne? The war is almost lost, houne?"

	"What do you care? You've been thrown to the crocodiles, anyway."

	"Crackodales? What are those, please?"

	"Kastans wearing a grin," informed Holden. "But don't quote me.

	The line edged onward. More Stames appeared, joined in behind the Terrans. They did not speak unless spoken to. Every one of them was thin, under-nourished, dull-eyed and apathetic. Stames and Aluesines in parallel lines were in no better condition. Their clothes were worn and shabby. A third of them lacked boots or shoes and trod the concrete bare-footed.

	At the cookhouse forty impassive Aluesines stood in pairs beside twenty big, steaming boilers and ladled out the contents under the sharp eyes of as many guards. One scoop just about filled one bowl.

	Holden, first in the Terran file, got his, examined it closely, smelled it, rasped, "What is this foul potion?"

	A guard eyed him. "You say?"

	"I say it's a crying shame, you lumbering clunker."

	"You will speak only in Extralingua," reproved the guard. "To use your own language is forbidden."

	Carrying their bowls clear of the several line-ups, they followed the example of those already served, sat on the hard surface of the yard and ate. Plying their spoons they dipped and sucked in unison. The concoction tasted like mixed vegetable soup. Unidentifiable portions of stuff floated around in it and to Terran nostrils it had the fragrance of the cathouse at the zoo.

	Without enthusiasm they finished the stew, washed spoons and bowls under a faucet, hung around to see what next. Nothing much happened for a while. Prisoners who had been fed lolled listlessly around the yard while those yet to be fed shuffled forward with bowls in hands. As the last few of the latter reached the cookhouse a strange stirring, a kind of subtle animation went through the crowd. Tenseness could almost be felt.

	Then behind the block a guard bawled something unhearable. Immediately a mob of prisoners made a mad rush to the cookhouse. There came noises of scuffling feet, shouted orders, Kastan curses and cracking whips. Soon the mob mooched back.

	One of them, a weary-eyed Aluesine, sat near the Terrans, tilted his bowl to his mouth and drank greedily. Then he sighed, lay back propped on his elbows, looked idly around. His clothes were black with anthracite dust and a fresh weal showed across his face.

-

	Wardle edged across to him, asked, "What caused the fracas?"

	"Extra," said the other.

	"Extra?" Wardle was puzzled. "Extra what?"

	"Soup," said the Aluesine. "Sometimes after all have been served there is a little left over. So the guards give a shout. First comers get it, just a mouthful apiece."

	"And for that you ran like an animal?"

	"We are prisoners," reminded the Aluesine, with dreadful philosophy. "A prisoner is no more than an animal. What else can he be?"

	"A warrior," snapped Wardle.

	"What, without a gun and without honor? You speak stupidly."

	He got up and walked away.

	"Hear that?" Wardle glanced at the others. "It shows what we're up against."

	"Hell of a note," said Holden, disgustedly.

	"We mustn't condemn them," Wardle warned. "They think the way they've been brought up to think and the result isn't their fault. Besides, the Aluesines are having a hard time. They work when they ought to be sleeping and they try to sleep when normally they'd be active. Their nature is being turned upside-down. I'll bet that character feels like he's on his last lap."

	"The Stames aren't having it good either," put in Ludovic Pye. "I've just had a word with that one." He pointed to a distant mourner following an invisible coffin. "Says he's been here four years, worked like a dog, and hasn't tasted meat since he bit his tongue."

	"Well, we've another small advantage," Wardle commented. "The Kastans are doling out their lousy food on the basis of the minimum quantity needed to maintain useful life in people half as big again as ourselves. They're giving us the same as the rest. So in proportion to our requirements we're getting more than the others. We'll be only a quarter starved instead of half-starved."

	"With all the numerous advantages we've got or are alleged to have," remarked Pye, sarcastically, "it's a wonder the Kastans don't give up."

	"They will, chum, they will," Holden told him.

	Heaving himself erect, Wardle said, "Let's make some sort of a start while the going is good. Split up and work individually around the yard. Question anyone who's got a spark of animation and sec if we can find out who is the senior officer among this crowd."

	They went their several ways. Holden was the first to pop the question. He picked upon a Stame one degree less miserable than the rest.

	"Who is the senior officer in this dump?"

	"The Kastan commander of course. You were taken before him when you arrived, weren't you?"

	"I don't mean Festerhead. I mean who is the senior officer among the prisoners?"

	"There are no officers."

	"That so? Were they all sent elsewhere?"

	"There are no officers," asserted the Stame, as if speaking to an idiot, "because a prisoner has no rank. We are all prisoners. Therefore there are no officers."

	"Yair," said Holden. "That's right."

	He scowled, gave up the search, but ambled aimlessly on. Presently he met Casasola, the silent one who was heard when and only when speech was unavoidable.

	"No ranks, therefore no officers," Holden said.

	Casasola pulled a face and walked onward without remark. Next came Foley.

	"No rank, therefore no officers."

	"You're telling me?" said Foley disgustedly, and continued his futile questioning.

	In short time Holden became bored. Selecting an unpopulated corner of the yard, he sat down cross-legged, placed the bowl between his knees, hammered it with his spoon to attract attention and let go with a peculiar whine.

	"No momma, no poppa. Have pity, Sahib. Baksheesh in the name of Allah."

	"You will not talk in dwarf-language," ordered a voice situated high above size twenty boots.

	Holden looked upward. "Oh, good evening, Guard-Major Slobovitch."

	"The name is Slovits" shouted Slovits, showing horse's teeth.

-

	Nobody shared their room when the door clicked shut for the night. The five spare beds remained unoccupied. Wardle eyed the beds speculatively.

	"Either this pokey isn't yet full to capacity or else they're keeping us apart from the rest night-times. I hope it's the former."

	"Does it matter?" asked Pye.

	"It might. If they're segregating us within the block it could be because they know more about Terrans than we think. By the same token they could know too much about our military tactics. I like an enemy to be big, clumsy and ignorant."

	"They can't know much," scoffed Pye. "They're numerically the strongest lifeform yet known, and they control some sixty scattered planets, but their intelligence service has never probed as far as the Terran sphere of operations. The Kastans have been spending all their time fighting Stames and Aluesines and lesser types; up to when we left home they'd heard of us only by repute." He gave a sniff of disdain. "Bet they've crawled all over Elsie and think she's the best we've got."

	"What, you dare to speak lightly of a woman's name?" interjected Holden, pretendedly shocked.

	"Anyway," continued Wardle, "we now know that the experts have proved correct about imprisoned allies and have weighed them up fairly accurately. It's obvious that not one of these prisoners would lift a finger to get back home. He knows that if he did return he'd be scorned by the populace, denied a living, repudiated by his family and become a social outcast. He's no inducement to make a break."

	"Not yet," said Holden.

	"No, not yet. Our experts think they've found a way to crack the hard crust of alien convention, to the great advantage of the Union and the confoundment of the Kastans. We've got to make it work. We've now had a close look at the set-up—what do you fellows think of our chances?"

	"Too early to judge," Holden opined. "We can make some better guesses after another week/'

	"I thought they were exaggerating back on Terra," ventured Pye. "But they weren't. Not one little bit. We're expected to perform miracles with a mob of exhausted zombies. It's a tough task, in my opinion."

	"That's because you're letting yourself be bemused by their alien viewpoint," said Wardle. "The more baffling you permit it to seem, the harder the job looks. Try simplifying it in your own mind."

	"How d'you mean?"

	"This way: basically the Stames and Aluesines are topnotch fighters, full of guts and ready for anything—so long as they've got guns in their hands and retain what they choose to regard as personal honor. Take away their guns and kick them in the britches and you destroy that honor. So they are bollixed by what is, in effect, a tribal custom that's been established for many centuries."

	"But it doesn't make sense."

	"Neither do some of our habits. Maybe it did make sense in the long, long ago. Maybe it was a natural and necessary way of eliminating the weak at a time when explosives and paralyzing gases weren't thought of. Anyway, the only real difference between these prisoners and ourselves is that we can be stripped naked and still retain an item of which they are deprived."

	"Such as?"

	"An invisible something called morale."

	"Humph!" said Pye, unimpressed.

-

	"Either a prisoner has it or he hasn't," Wardle went on. "This mob has not got it and it isn't their fault. They've been kidded by longstanding custom into believing there's no such thing. Or rather I should say they've been made blind to it. What we've got to do is help them see clear and straight."

	"I know all that," Pye grumbled. "But once I spent five years on Hermione. As maybe you know, the Hermione have good, sharp sight but see only black, white and shades of gray. They're not to blame for that; it's the way they're made. You can argue with them from now to the crack of doom and never succeed in describing colors or telling them what they're missing."

	"So what? We aren't here to try give the Stames and Aluesines something mysterious that they've never had. Our concern is to restore something they've lost, something they had aplenty when their guns were loaded and in their hands. It may be difficult. It isn't impossible."

	"What does that mean?" inquired Holden.

	"What does what mean?"

	"Impossible?"

	"Forget it," advised Wardle, grinning. "There is no such word."

	Holden leaned across toward Pye and said in tutorial manner, "You heard what the nice gentleman said—there is no such word."

	'"Humph!" repeated Pye, determined to coddle his mood of temporary skepticism.

	Wardle ambled to a window and looked out. Darkness had fallen, the purplish sky was sprinkled with stars. A pale primrose glow rippled across the landscape as one of Gallon's three minor moons arced overhead.

	The top of the prison wall was illuminated by narrow-beamed flares directed horizontally along it. Apparently the sole purpose of the lighting was to make clear the path of patrolling sentinels lest otherwise they should step on the spikes and take a sixty-foot dive.

	"We must time the movements of these guards," said Wardle. "We'd better take turns at keeping watch on them. As soon as possible we must acquire precise details of their nightly routine."

	"We must also dig up a small crate from somewhere," Holden put in, "or, better still, a three-foot folding ladder."

	"What for?" demanded Wardle.

	"Sooner or later we may have to slug one of them. The slugger will need a ladder to lay out a chump eight feet tall. Takes brains to think of everything." Selecting a bed, he sprawled on it, glanced sidewise, met the gaze of the ever-silent Casasola. "So you're still with us, eh? Just a rose in a garden of weeds."

	Casasola did not deign to reply.

	Came the dawn. It was sweetened by the majesty of Guard-Major Slovits. He flung wide the door, marched in, prodded each blanket-covered shape with his whip-handle.

	"You will dress at once. You will go for your morning food. Immediately you have eaten you will parade outside the commander's office." He distributed a few more impartial jabs. "Is that understood?"

	"It is," said Wardle.

	Slovits marched out. Foley rolled over, groaned, sat up, rubbed red-rimmed eyes.

	"What did he say?"

	"In effect, get moving," Wardle informed.

	"After breakfast we're invited to drinks with Festerhead," Holden added.

	"Like hell we are," said Foley. "What's Festerhead want us for, anyway?"

	"I'll tell you for a small fee," offered Alpin McAlpin.

	In due time they reached the head of the line-up and received one quart apiece of cat-house soup. They sat on the ground and ate.

	"Good, bonne?" remarked a nearby Stame, as though guzzling the stuff was the only remaining joy in life.

	"Think so?" Foley scowled at him. "I say it stinks."

	"An insult to the belly," offered Cheminais in support.

	"Not fit for hogs," declared Ludovic Pye.

	"Down, down, you mutinous dogs!" bellowed Holden at the top of his voice.

	Ten thousand pairs of eyes turned simultaneously their way, ten thousand wooden spoons poised motionless over as many bowls. A dozen guards raced toward the center of general attention.

	The first of them arrived and demanded breathlessly, "Now, what is this?"

	"What is what?" said Holden, childlike and bland.

	"You have screamed. Why have you screamed?"

	"I always scream two hours after sunrise on Thursdays."

	"Thursdays? What are those?"

	"Holy days."

	"And why do you scream then?"

	"It is my religion," assured Holden, oozing piety.

	"A prisoner has no religion," stated the guard, with considerable emphasis. "There will be no more screaming."

	He stamped away impatiently. The other guards went with him. Ten thousand pairs of eyes lost interest, ten thousand spoons resumed scooping at as many bowls.

	"That mug," said Holden, "is so dumb he thinks fuller's earth is a planet."

	The nearby Stame glanced warily around, whispered in confidential manner, "I will tell you something. All Terrans are crazy."

	"Not all of us," Wardle denied. "Just one of us. Only one."

	"Which one?" asked the Stame.

	"Not telling," said Holden. "It's a military secret."

	"Prisoners have no secrets," said the Stame with much positiveness.

	"We have!" Holden sucked soup loudly. "Good, houne?"

	The Stame got up and walked away. For reasons best known to himself he was slightly dazed.

	"Is this your idea of behaving quietly and humbly for a piece?" asked Wardle. "If so, what's going to happen when we decide to get uppish? Were you ever a juvenile delinquent?"

	Holden finished his soup, then, "Obedience has its limits so far as I'm concerned. Besides, we're fighting a state of mind. It's a mental condition that sticks in my craw. The sooner we cure them of it, the better."

	"That may be. But we've got to be careful we don't overreach ourselves by starting off too fast. We've got to show these Stames and Aluesines that victory and self-respect can both be gained. It won't help us any if they explain all our words and deeds in terms of lunacy."

	"Neither will it help us to mope around kowtowing to all and sundry."

	"Have it your own way," said Wardle, giving up.

-

	The Stames and Aluesines started forming in close-packed columns and marching out through the main gate. They still carried their bowls and spoons. None bore tools, these presumably being stored at wherever they labored. Guards chivvied them continually as they trudged along, urging them to move faster. Several who stumbled and fell out of the ranks were promptly booted back into place.

	Meanwhile the Terrans paraded as ordered outside the commander's office. A great Kastan banner flapped and fluttered from its pole above the building. Holden watched the flag, seemingly fascinated by its movements.

	They were still waiting when the last of the working parties left the yard and the big gates clanged shut. Now the space was empty, the barrack-blocks deserted. There were no sounds other than the thump of boots along the wall-top, the receding shouts of guards accompanying the columns and vague noises in the distance where other slaves already had resumed their daily tasks.

	After they had fidgeted aimlessly around for more than an hour, Slovits appeared. "You will come inside and answer all questions."

	They traipsed in, found themselves facing five officers of whom the middle one was the prison commander. All five had the bored attitude of farmers about to compile the milk records of a herd of cows.

	"You," said Festerhead, pointing. "Which one are you?"

	"Alpin McAlpin."

	"In what have you been trained?"

	"Radio communications.'*

	"So you are a technician?" 

	"Yes."

	"Good!" approved Festerhead. "We can use skilled personnel. Far too many of these Union captives are common soldiers fit for nothing save drudgery." He conferred with the officer seated on his left, finished, "Yes, let Raduma have him." He returned attention to the seven and pointed again. "You?"

	"Ludovic Pye."

	"Training?"

	"Electronics engineer."

	"Raduma," said Festerhead to the one on his left. "Next?"

	"Henry Casasola. Engineer-armorer."

	"Main workshops," decided Festerhead. "Next?"

	"Robert Cheminais. Propulsion engineer."

	"Main workshops. Next?"

	"James Foley. Fleet doctor."

	"Prison hospital," said Fester-head, promptly. "Next?"

	"Frank Wardle. Pilot-commander."

	"A pilot? We have no use whatever for alien pilots. How long is it since you were inducted into the Terran forces?"

	"Eight years ago."

	"And what were you before then?"

	"A forestry expert," informed Wardle, forcing his face to keep straight.

	Festerhead slapped a hand on the desk and exclaimed with a gratified air, "Superb! Put him in the jungle gang. We'll then have one of them who can turn round twice and still know north from south." He stared inquiringly at the last Terran.

	"William Holden. Navigator."

	"What can we do with a navigator? Nothing! Have you no other technical qualification?"

	"No."

	"What were you originally?"

	"A quarry manager."

	Almost beaming, Festerhead said, "This one's for the stone gang."

	Holden smirked back. He couldn't help it. Running through his mind was a brief speech made back on Terra by a gray-haired oldster.

	"Without exception all intelligent lifeforms are builders. All large-scale builders employ natural resources, especially stone. One obtains stone from quarries. One quarries it by blasting. Therefore a quarry-worker has access to explosives which, nine times out of ten, are not under military protection." A pause while he waited for it to sink in, followed by, "You will now undergo a course on quarrying techniques with particular reference to explosives."

-

	Not noticing Holden's expression, Festerhead returned attention to Wardle. "You were in charge of this Terran vessel that made a forced landing?" 

	"I was."

	"Yet all of your crew were of the same rank, all captains. Why is that?"

	"Each of us had risen to a captaincy in his own specialized profession."

	"It seems strange to me," commented Festerhead. "The Terrans must have peculiar ways of doing things. However, it is of no consequence. I am concerned with something more important." He fixed a cold gaze on his listener. "This morning we received a signal from Kasta. They are taking all necessary measures to capture Snow White."

	Wardle fought within himself to remain silent and impassive. It was an awful strain.

	"Why was this female aboard?"

	"We were transporting her to sector headquarters," lied Wardle, not daring to look at his six companions.

	"Why?"

	"I don't know. We had our orders and did not question them."

	"Why is her name not recorded in the documents we have seized from your ship?"

	"I don't know. The papers are prepared by Terran authorities. I cannot accept responsibility for what is or what is not written upon them."

	"How did this female succeed in escaping while you seven were captured?" Festerhead persisted.

	"She fled into the woods the moment we landed. We stayed by the ship, trying to repair it."

	"Did she take anything with her? A weapon, or an instrument"—he bent forward, gave it emphasis—"such as a long-range transmitter?"

	"I don't know. We were too busy to notice."

	"Answer me truthfully or it will go hard with you! Is this Snow White an intelligence agent?"

	"Not that I know of." Wardle made a deprecating gesture. "If she were, we wouldn't necessarily be told."

	"Is she young or old?"

	"Fairly young."

	"And attractive?"

	"Yes, I would call her that." Wardle felt a couple of beads of sweat sneaking down his spine.

	Festerhead put on the knowing look of one who's been nicked by every night club and head waiter in town. "Have you any reason to suppose that she may have been the favorite of a high military commander?"

	"Could be," conceded Wardle, radiating the admiration due from a yokel.

	"And so, to us, a valuable hostage?" continued Festerhead, soaking up the worship of a hick.

	"Could be," repeated Wardle, upping the output.

	Preening himself, Festerhead said, "Describe her in full detail."

	Wardle did it, right down to her stud earrings. It was a masterly picture worthy of Ananias at his best. Festerhead listened carefully while one of his officers wrote it down word for word.

	"Have these details radiated to Kasta at once," ordered Festerhead when finally Wardle dried up. He switched attention to Slovits. "These Terrans will commence work today. See that they are taken where assigned."

	Slovits led them away.

-

	The seven were split up and conducted their various ways. They did not meet again until the Stame-line formed for the evening meal.

	"No talking," greeted Wardle. "Leave it until later when we'll be one.

	Holden turned to Casasola, who was immediately behind him, empty bowl in hand. "You heard what the nice gentleman said. No talking. So keep your trap shut."

	As usual, Casasola said nothing.

	When they were in their room with the door fastened for the night, Wardle said, "Like me to start with the yap?"

	"Might as well," agreed Pye, for the rest.

	"All right. I've been with a gang of Stames cutting and hauling lumber. Six guards were with us, every one of them lazy and careless. They sat in a hut playing a kind of card game, knowing that nobody would take it on the lam because there's nowhere to go—not even home. Discipline gets pretty slack out there in the jungle."

	"You want more of it?" asked Holden.

	Ignoring the interruption, Wardle continued, "I talked plenty with those Stames and no guard ordered me to shut up. Seems that the Kastans have kept to their native timekeeping despite that the day here is more than twenty-eight hours long. Their routine is based on the Kastan hour which measures just over forty-two of our minutes. All walls are patrolled four times per hour. Roughly, once every ten minutes."

	"That's what we made it when we watched them last night," Pye reminded.

	"So anyone who wants to get over that sixty-foot wall has got to do it in under ten minutes. If he's spotted he'll be shot on sight—not for trying to escape but for disobedience. Ten minutes isn't much of a margin." He shrugged, went on, "The wall-patrols haven't been established to prevent escapes because they don't expect any. They're merely performing a wartime routine of keeping watch against outside attack. But that doesn't help us any. They've got eyes in their heads no matter which way they're looking."

	"How about the gate?" asked Foley.

	"There's an all-night guard on it; twelve men and another twelve within call. There's a total of four hundred guards in this jail. There are forty similar prisons in Gathin. A dozen are within easy reach of here, some so near that their lumbering gangs are cutting timber alongside our mob." I low near?"

	"One of them is only a mile away. You could see it from the window but for the rise of land and the trees." Wardle paused, finished, "I've saved the best bit to the last. You've noticed that extension back of Festerhead's building? It's the garrison armory. It holds at least four hundred guns and plenty of ammo."

	"Did any Stame get roused from his lethargy by your questions?" inquired Holden.

	"Not that I noticed." Wardle pulled a face. "They attributed them to idle curiosity. How did you get

-

	Holden laughed with a rasping, knocking sound like that of a burial casket falling downstairs. Taking from his pocket a lump of soft, grayish substance, he tossed it into the air, caught it, juggled it dexterously. Then he molded it with his fingers.

	"What's that?" asked Foley.

	"Alamite."

	"And what might alamite be?"

	"Plastic explosive," said Holden. 

	"For heaven's sake!" Foley fell over a bed in his haste to make distance.

	"Put it away," begged Pye. "You make me nervous."

	"Bah!" said Holden. "You could bite it and chew it and nothing would happen. It needs a detonator."

	"You wouldn't happen to have one with you?"

	"No, I didn't bother to bring one. I can get fifty any time I want. And a ton of alamite to go with it. The stuff is touchy. The guards don't go near it. They leave the slaves to handle it and blow themselves apart." He gave the same laugh again. "I am a slave."

	"How's that, fellows?" said Wardle, with great satisfaction. "One blast at the armory doors and we've got four hundred guns."

	"I've something else, too." Putting the alamite back in a pocket, Holden removed his jacket and shirt, unwound from his middle a long coil of thin but strong cord. "It was lying around begging to be taken. Good, houne?"

	"Hide it some place," urged Wardle. "We're going to need that rope before we're through." He turned to McAlpin. "What's your report?"

	"They let Pye and me work together. In a big repair shop. All sorts of electronic stuff. The work is mostly radio and video servicing, the ordinary checking, adjusting or repairing of spaceship equipment: They kept close watch on the two of us until they became satisfied that we really know our job. After that they left us alone to get on with it."

	"Any chance of sabotaging their junk?"

	"Not just yet," said McAlpin, regretfully. "Maybe later on. Raduma, who's in charge of the place, is a fussy character and to give him his due he's an expert. He likes everything perfect and regards a substandard job as a slur on his professional competence. Whenever we finish a piece of work he puts the equipment on the test-bench and checks its functioning personally. That doesn't leave us much scope, does it?"

	"No, I guess not. But he's pernickety rather than suspicious?"

	"That's right. And like all of his type he wastes no time or thought on apparatus which is beyond repair or not worth repairing. It gets tossed in the yard at back and is left there to rot."

	"So—?"

	"So we can help ourselves ad lib providing we do it surreptitiously and providing work goes on satisfactorily. There is a mountain of stuff from which we can take our pick—if nobody sees us picking. Some dexterous cannibalizing will get us everything we want. Our chief trouble is going to be that of smuggling it far from sight."

	"Can you get it into the edge of the jungle?" asked Wardle.

	"Sure thing. But no farther. We can't risk being missed more than five or six minutes at a time."

	"Leave the rest to me. You get it into the jungle's fringe and let me know when and where. I'll have it dragged away somehow. I'm not in a timber gang for nothing. How long do you reckon it will take to swipe all the parts you need?"

-

	McAlpin thought a bit. "We can make the booster in the workshop right under their noses. The bowl antenna will have to be sneaked piece by piece and assembled elsewhere. To make or steal the lot and gel it away will take at least a fortnight—and that's assuming we're not caught."

	"It won't be enough merely to make some equipment disappear," chipped in Pye. "We've also got to find a small clearing some place where we can set up the beacon without interference. It'll have to be off the forest tracks where no Kastan or gabby prisoner is likely to see it. It will also have to be within reach of power lines that we can tap."

	"How near to power lines?"

	"Say not more than eight hundred yards away," offered Pye. "I think we can grab enough cable to cover that distance."

	"O. K. You tend to teleportating the stuff as far as the trees. I'll find a site and have it taken there."

	"How?"

	"Don't know yet. But it's my grief. I'll do it if it kills me." Wardle now turned attention to Foley. "Anything to say?"

	"Not much. The prison hospital is a blot on so-called civilization. Its chief concern is to set half-dead slaves back to work with the minimum of cost, trouble and delay. Even sick guards have a rough time of it there. The equipment is poor, the treatment inhuman, and Doctor-Major Machimbar, who bosses the place, is a disgrace to the medical profession."

	"A warning, fellows," said Wardle, looking at the others. "Nobody falls sick if he can help it."

	"Give you one guess at Machimbar's greeting when I reported to him," said Foley.

	"Henceforth your sole purpose in life will be to please me," Holden suggested.

	"Correct." Foley brooded a while, added, "There's two items of interest. For one, the hospital is outside the prison and within a short sprint of the jungle. Theoretically it's an easy escape route. In grim fact you've got to be in extremis to be taken there."

	"And the other item?" Wardle prompted.

	"I found a Stame colonel."

	"You did?"

	"I asked an emaciated Stame what he'd been before capture. He said a colonel of infantry. He and his troop had been paralyzed with gas and were in manacles when they recovered. They never had a chance but that doesn't stop him thinking himself a shame to his race."

	"We can use him," said Wardle.

	"We can do better," Foley replied. "According to him there are four more ex-colonels somewhere in this clink. There is also a former Aluesine major-general."

	"Name?"

	"General Partha-ak-Waym."

	"We've got to find that character. We've got to get him into a corner and talk."

	"And make him see reason," contributed Pye, openly doubting the ability of any foreigner to do so.

-

	Holden said, "The night is young. There is one among us, name of Cheminais, specially trained to bust any lock yet devised by the thinking mind. Being able to count, I have estimated that there are four barrack-blocks in this emporium. Therefore there's one chance in four that our block holds this Pat Ak-Whatzit."

	"Partha-ak-Waym," Foley corrected.

	"That is what I said," declared Holden. "Well, what are we waiting for? You fellows crippled or something?"

	"Can you open the door?" Wardle asked Cheminais.

	That worthy, a burly and blue-jowled specimen, felt around his clothes, produced a festoon of lock-picks. "I have not spent a day in the main workshops for nothing." He started operating on the door.

	"You were with him in the workshops," said Wardle to Casa-sola. "Did you get anything worth having?"

	Without comment Casasola felt at the back of his neck, found a loop of string, pulled it and hauled up what had been hanging down his back. It was the middle leaf of a Kastan truck-spring, a piece of steel thirty inches long, one inch wide, slightly curved. Two countersunk holes had been drilled either side of its center, also one hole at each end. He gave it to Wardle.

	"Did you drill it yourself, without being spotted?" Wardle asked.

	Casasola nodded.

	"Good for you! Get any wire?"

	Impassively Casasola handed over a coil of wire. Also a dozen six-inch nails with their heads cut off, their sheared ends slotted, their points ground needle sharp.

	"Been quite a busy little bee, haven't you?" said Wardle, greatly pleased.

	Casasola gave a faint smile and nodded again.

	"The stupid, cockeyed tiling!" swore Cheminais from the door. "Just because they're Kastans doesn't mean they've got to fix it upside-down." He did something to the lock. It squeaked in protest, surrendered with a click. The door swung open. "That's it. Dead easy once you've got the hang of it."

	"Anyone coming with me?" Wardle glanced inquiringly around.

	"Count me out," yawned Holden. "I'm too tired."

	"I'll have to go," Cheminais pointed out. "There's a lock on every room/*

	"Maybe I should go, too," suggested Foley. "I've practically got an introduction from that Stame colonel. It may help to establish confidence at the start."

	"Yes, you've made a point there." Wardle slipped cautiously into the corridor. It was empty. "Three of us are plenty. No sense in the lot of us trooping around. If a guard catches us, act dopey. The door didn't shut and we don't know we're doing wrong, see?" He thought a moment. "We'll start at the top floor and work down. That way we're less likely to walk into a beating-up."

-

	Swiftly but quietly he moved along the corridor, reached the stairs. Despite lack of a lighting system within the building it was not difficult to see where one was going. Darkness was never absolute on Gathin, what with the shine of three moons and a multitude of stars. Moreover the flarepath along the wall-top contributed its share to interior illumination.

	At the foot of the stairs Wardle paused, motioned the others to stay still while he listened. Not a sound came down from above, no stamp of patrolling boots, no creak of leather, not even a restless stirring of prisoners.

	The thought raced through his mind that if those incarcerated in this block had all been Terrans the entire building would have resounded with the noises of energetic and mostly mutinous activity. The trouble with Terrans was that they were persistent practitioners of naughtiness. All the same, there were circumstances in which they had very considerable nuisance value.

	He mounted the stairs, turned the end of another unguarded corridor, listened again, went up the next flight. Cheminais padded silently behind him. Foley followed in the rear, no more than a dark shadow.

	At the top Wardle stopped. The Others halted promptly, thinking he'd heard something. They listened but detected no cause for alarm.

	"What's the matter?" whispered Foley.

	"Just thought of' something. Holden—he wouldn't come. It's not like him to refuse activity."

	"He said he was tired."

	"Yes, I know," Wardle murmured. "And he's a liar. I've just realized he had a conspiratorial expression when he said it. He wanted me out of the way. If he starts an uproar while we're up here—"

	"Forget it," urged Foley. "We've got to take a chance. We can't go back now."

	"Darn Holden!" swore Wardle in an undertone. "And his Snow White. He's the most undisciplined—"

	"Aren't we all?" Foley gave him a gentle shove. "Move on. I want some sleep tonight even if you don't."

	Wardle glided forward, scowling in the gloom. He found a door, put his ear to it, heard grunts and faint snores.

	"Try this one."
-

	Cheminais felt around the lock, fumbled with it until it clicked. The door emitted loud creaks as he shoved it open. Wardle went in. A Stame sat up hurriedly in bed, stared at him with incredulous, eyes as big as an owl's.

	"Any Aluesines in here?" asked ' Wardle, in low tones.

	The Stame opened his mouth, shut it, opened it again. His eyes were straining to grow larger. He seemed stuck for words.

	"Quick!—any Aluesines?"

	"Two doors along." It came out in a gasp.

	"Thanks." Wardle departed, carefully closing the door.

	Behind him, the Stame crawled out of bed, shook awake the one in the next. "A Terran just came in. D'you hear me, Vermer? A Terran is wandering around contrary to orders,"

	"Then why should he come here?" said the other, with much disdain. "You have been dreaming." He rolled over and went back to sleep.

	The second door swung inward without a sound. The three passed through, quiet as ghosts. Nevertheless they were heard and seen the moment they entered. These nocturnal Aluesines could never reconcile themselves to sleeping in their normally wakeful hours, they had sharp ears and superb nightsight.

	All twenty were sitting up, their cat-eyes watching the door, as the trio of Terrans came in.

	In low tones Wardle said without preamble, "We are looking for Partha-ak-Waym. Do any of you know where he is?"

	One of them had enough self-possession to speak up promptly, "lie is in this block, on the second floor, the middle room facing the yard."

	Wardle eyed him with approval. "What is your rank?"

	"A prisoner has no rank. Surely you know that?"

	Foley chipped in with his own tactic. "What was your rank before capture?"

	"I was a flight leader."

	"Ah, a space-navy officer?"

	"Yes—but there are no officers now."

	"Your name?" asked Foley. "Dareuth."

	"Thanks! We shall remember it."

	They made to depart but Dareuth was not prepared to leave it at that. "Earthmen, permit me to advise you—the latrines are best."

	"Best?" Wardle paused in the doorway, looked back baffled. "Best for what?"

	"For killing oneself. In any other place your comrades will be punished for allowing you to do, it."

	"Thank you, Dareuth," said Wardle, very courteously. He went into the corridor, closed the door. "God, what a state of mind! Anyone who breaks loose contrary to regulations is either looney or seeking a gibbet."

	"Save your breath," Foley advised. "Do we try the second floor right now or do we leave it until another night?"

	"We'll try now, while the going is good."

	They got down to the second floor without mishap, found the right door. Cheminais unlocked it and they walked in. This room was a duplicate of their own, held twelve beds. A dozen Aluesines immediately sat up, wide awake and glowing-eyed.

	Wardle whispered to the one on the nearest bed. The Aluesine pointed to the sixth and said, "There."

	The three knew exactly what to do. They marched to the foot of the indicated bed, stood in line, shoulders squared, heads erect. Three-arms flicked up in a precise salute.

	"Captain Wardle and two officers reporting to General Partha-ak-Waym!"

-

	General Partha retained full self-control and much dignity. Clambering out, he folded his one dirty blanket, pulled on his tattered and threadbare clothes. Then he-gazed down upon the diminutive Terrans. He was older than the average prisoner, with many seams and wrinkles around the corners of his eyes.

	"It does not help to be mocked," he said, quietly. "Former officers should know better than to behave in such a way."

	"There is nothing 'former' about us, sir," replied Wardle, showing firmness. "We are still officers. I am still a captain. You are still a general."

	"Really?" His features quirked. "A general in what army?"

	By hokey, this was it! He'd asked for it and he was going to get it. Right where it would do the most good.

	"I have the honor to inform you, sir, that you are a general of the Free Gath Republic."

	"Indeed? Who says so?"

	"The Space Union, sir. The Gaths need every officer they can muster."

	"What nonsense is this?" said Partha, impatiently. "I have never heard of Gaths, never in my life. I do not believe that there is such a race. If there is, where are they located?"

	"On Gathin, sir."

	Hah, that hit him.

	Partha rocked back. "But this is Gathin."

	"That's correct, sir."

	"I am not a native of Gathin."

	"Neither are the Kastans."

	"I am a ... I am a—"

	Wardle eyed him steadily. "You are a what, sir?"

	There was no answer.

	"Either you are a Gath or you are nothing," said Wardle. "And you cannot be nothing."

	General Partha made no reply. He stood perfectly still as if on parade, his attention toward a window, his eyes upon the stars. Eleven other Aluesines got off their beds and stood with him, motivated by they knew not what.

	"On this world of ours," continued Wardle, "there is a horde of a quarter million Kastan invaders. There is also an army of four hundred thousand fighting Gaths who lack one thing and one only—guns."

	"The Stames—"

	"What Stames? There are no Stames here, sir. There are only Gaths."

	It took Partha quite a time to cope with his churning thoughts. He had to win a mental battle against the fixed idea that a prisoner is of the damned, forever without hope of salvation, without escape other than in the grave. A topsy-turvy viewpoint is extremely hard to assimilate and, metaphorically speaking, these three Terrans had come at him walking on the ceiling.

	But he was a general—and as such was helped to moral victory by swift realization of the military advantages of doing what comes unnaturally.

	Studying Wardle with sudden shrewdness, he said, "A few questions. Firstly, what is the response you have obtained from the Gaths who resemble Stames?"

	"None—for the reason that we haven't approached them yet. We had to start somewhere. We started with you, sir."

	"You intend to put the matter to them?"

	"Most certainly, sir."

	"Secondly," continued Partha, "you have stated that we need guns. Can they be obtained and, if so, when?"

	"Guns will become available when the Gath army has the guts to use them, sir."

	He did not flinch. On the contrary, he became more dignified than ever. "I accept that without resentment. To regain honor we must earn it." He paused, went on, "Thirdly, my past training enables me to see the tactical benefits of the rise of a Gath army. I would like to know whether such a rise is a plan in itself or essential part of a greater scheme."

	"It is part of a greater Union plan," said Wardle.

	"Meaning that an established Gath Republic would find itself with allies?"

	"Yes, sir. It would be officially recognized and supported by the Space Union."

	"All the Union, including—?"

	"Including the Aluesine Empire," Wardle assured. "Is there any reason why conquering Aluesines should not recognize triumphant Gaths?"

	At that moment the stream of burning thoughts and the surge of violent emotions became too much for Partha. He sat on the edge of his bed, held his face in his hands. Terrans and Aluesines watched in awkward silence.

	Finally he recovered and said, "Give me time to discuss these things with my comrades. Do you think you might be able to visit me again tomorrow night?"

	"I cannot agree to do so, sir, unless you state it properly."

	"Properly?"

	"Yes, sir. You must stand to attention and say, 'Captain Wardle, I wish to consult my staff. Report to me at the same time tomorrow.' "

	General Partha-ak-Waym came erect. Instinctively the Aluesines lined up on either side of him. There was a visible glow in his eyes, a firmness in his voice.

	"Captain Wardle, I wish to consult my staff. Report to me at the same time tomorrow."

	"Very well, sir." Wardle saluted. So did Cheminais and Foley. The three marched out.

	Hallway up the stairs to the third floor, Foley said, "Hooked, by gosh!"

	Halfway up the stairs to the fifth floor a shot split the silence of the night somewhere outside. The three bolted to their room like scared rats.

-

	Wardle reacted with the speed of one who has hidden reasons to expect the worst. Leaving Cheminais to relock the door, he took one swift look around the room, booted a blanket-covered behind on the nearest bed.

	"Where is he?"

	Pye rolled over, struggled to raise himself on his elbows, bleared at the questioner. "Huh? 'Smarter?"

	"Where's Holden?" Wardle bawled.

	"Gone out," yawned Pye, dozily indifferent. He let the elbows slide from under him, sank back.

	"Gone where?" cried Wardle, vastly irritated.

	"That way." Pye pointed more or less toward an open window. Apparently this effort was too much for him because he let his arm drop, closed his eyes, gobbled and gulped a couple of times, settled down to a steady and rhythmic snore.

	Wardle voiced five disconnected words none of which were in Extralingua. Crossing to the window he looked out and down. Sixty feet below the ground was vague, obscure, and he could detect nobody lurking there. A cord hung out the window, swaying slackly in the thin breeze of night. Within the room the cord was tied around the leg of a bed with about forty feet of surplus length coiled neatly alongside.

	Even as he looked out a guard ran along the facing wall-top, disappeared from sight far over to the left. In that direction several voices could be heard arguing in the dark. What they were saying was indistinct, but they sounded querulous.

	Returning to his own bed, Wardle flopped on it and stared fixedly at the window-gap. Foley and Cheminais washed at the one basin, lay down in the manner of men conspicuously unworried. Presently their snores were added to those of the others. Wardle continued to watch the window.

	After half an hour the dangling cord went taut and emitted faint squeaks as it pressed hard on the woodwork of the window-frame. A head appeared in the gap, a body followed. Holden clambered through, pulled up the cord, carefully coiled it, closed the window. Then he spat on his hands and rubbed them against his pants.

	"You cockeyed coot," said Wardle. "You'd try the patience of a sanctimony of bishops."

	Holden started, recovered, said pleasantly, "You're looking well this evening—just had your tongue back from the cleaners?"

	"This isn't funny. We heard a gun go off sometime back. It's going to endanger the whole set-up if we invite the Kastans to start shooting at us before we're ready."

	"Nobody's been shooting at me, see?" said Holden.

	"I suppose the gun exploded by sheer accident?"

	"Dead right, chum. It was accidental but not quite sheer." Sitting on the edge of his bed, Holden started taking off his boots. "This joker had propped himself against the corner of the armory, being in need of more support than he gets from his sergeant. His gun was propped likewise. He'd worked it out very neatly that a weight on the ground isn't felt on the shoulder, see?"

	"Yes, yes—get on with the story," urged Wardle.

	"Well, I broke a piece of wire off the armory fence, bent each end to form a hook. It took me ten minutes to crawl to the corner. I hooked one end of the wire around his trigger, the other end to the fence. Then I crawled back and left the rest to nature."

	"You lunatic. If he'd seen you, he'd have put a stream of slugs through your belly then and there."

	"He didn't see me. He wasn't seeing anything except Jennie with the light brown hair." Kicking his boots under the bed, Holden stood up. Undoing his pants, he felt around inside the seat, got a hold, commenced pulling out a long length of cloth. There seemed to be several yards of it.

-

	Unable to suppress his curiosity, Wardle crossed to the other's bed, examined the stuff in the dim light. Then he grabbed it up, took it to the window for a better look.

	"Holy cow! This is their flag!"

	"Yair," agreed Holden.

	"Where'd you get it?"

	"I found it in the bullrushes."

	He let go a snicker. "What's good enough for Pharoah's daughter is good enough for me."

	"The truth, man! You sneaked it right off the pole, didn't you?"

	"Might as well admit it," said Holden, with mock resignation. "And a devil of a time I had getting it. Up on Festerhead's roof the wind is like a gale. I nearly fell off twice. If I'd held my jacket wide open I'd have become airborne."

	"But ... but—" Wardle waved the stolen banner and found himself temporarily lost for words.

	"Four times a sentry passed below while I was struggling to get the thing down and stuff it in my pants. Never once did the stupid gump look upward."

	"But—"

	"We can use that rag. Cut off the crimson stripe at its end, convert the two white arrows into a six-pointed star, and what have you got? One white star on a blue background. For whom has the Union designed that kind of flag?"

	"The Gath Republic."

	"Correct. You can be quite bright at times." Rolling onto his bed, Holden arranged his blanket to give maximum warmth.

	"Where are we going to hide it until it's needed?" asked Wardle.

	"That's your worry. I got it—you stash it. Anyway, they never do any systematic searching."

	"There's always got to be a first time," Wardle pointed out. "I don't like this situation. Pandemonium will break loose when they discover their flag has been thieved overnight."

	"They won't stir a hair. After I'd cut the cord I frayed the ends to look like a break. Ten to one they'll jump to the conclusion that the wind whisked it into the jungle. If they do, I'm going to volunteer to lead some of the forest gang in search of it. That'll give us a sweet excuse to go looking for a beacon site.

	"You've got a hell of a nerve," said Wardle, with grudging admiration.

	Holden made a gesture of modest rebuttal. "I'd rather not see myself as others see me—I'm conceited enough already."

	With that, he went to sleep. But Wardle remained awake some time, nursing the flag and thinking. His final conclusion was that Holden could not be blamed.

	After all, a Terran must do something.

-

	Over the next four days the flag-hunters led by Holden failed to find so much as a loose thread. At the end of that time Festerhead's patience ran out. He put them back onto timber work, produced another banner from somewhere and had it nailed to the pole.

	But efforts had not been wasted. In those four days they had discovered a suitable place amid the thickest tangle of growths, cleared a small area, dug a pit six feet square by four deep. This they filled with rocks then left in readiness for concreting-in the beacon legs at first opportunity.

	It was on the twenty-first day of Terran captivity that a threat to carefully laid plans came from a completely unexpected quarter. It proved yet again that not everything can be foreseen even by the shrewdest, most painstaking minds.

	Over every conglomeration of intelligent beings hangs an invisible something called atmosphere. It cannot be seen, tasted or smelled. It can be sensed. It can almost be felt.

	After the evening meal on that day, Wardle stood in the yard and suddenly was struck by a powerful impression of change. A thrill of alarm ran through his mind as he sought to pin down and analyze the reasons. The atmosphere of the prison yard was different from what it had been three weeks ago; the cause or causes should be identifiable.

	Now that his brain had become aware of the phenomenon it didn't take his eyes long to relate cause and effect. The usual mob of Stames and Aluesines were milling aimlessly around the yard. In the mass, they were still whipped dogs—individually they were not. A change had taken place in personal behavior.

	They no longer slouched. They walked and some actually marched. They did not creep past guards with their heads lowered and their attention focused on the ground. On the contrary, they kept heads erect and stared straight at the guards, man to man, eye to eye. Even the persistently humorless, unsmiling Stames had switched expressions from glumness to grimness.

	Over all lay that vague, indefinable but strong impression of a calm before a storm, a power held in check with no guarantee that it could bide its time.

	The guards, too, sensed it without knowing what they sensed. Alien convention prevented them from recognizing the undercurrents and subtle stir-rumblings familiar to Terran wardens. So they were uneasy without knowing why. They fidgeted, kept guns in hands, grouped together in the yard, walked at faster pace along the wall-tops.

	With back hairs rising, Wardle set off on a hurried tour of the yard. In such a crowd it was difficult to find at once the individual he was seeking. Near one corner he encountered Pye.

	"Help find Partha for me. Also grab any Stame brasshats you happen to see."

	"Something wrong?" asked Pye.

	"Take a look around. This lot's making ready to go bang any time. It's the old story of the pendulum swinging to the other extreme." He jerked a thumb toward a small cluster of guards standing together in the shadow of the wall. "Even the Kastans are jumpy. When that type goes round the bend they're liable to start shooting at whoever happens to be handy. And that means us."

	Partha and two Stame colonels were found a few minutes later and shepherded into an unoccupied corner of the yard. There, Wardle made them a brief speech pointing out the giveaway symptoms, contrasting the controllability of an army with the indiscipline of a mob.

	"Previously your men waited with complete despair," he said. "Now they wait with renewed hope that comes harder. It is trying to the patience."

	"You created the disease," commented Partha. "It is for you to suggest a cure."

	"All right. Pass the word around as fast as your words can go that we're holding a conference tonight and that we'll be wanting volunteers tomorrow."

	"Volunteers for what?"

	"I don't know, I just don't know," admitted Wardle, momentarily at his wit's end. "We'll have to concoct a scheme of some sort, any sort so long as it pipes off the mounting steam. It's the philosophy of the trapped rat—when nothing can be done, do anything."

	"Very well," agreed Partha. He made to go.

	"And tell everyone it's essential not to let the Kastans take alarm," Wardle added, with much emphasis. "That means all prisoners must look like slaves, behave like slaves."

-

	Partha and the Stames went off, mixed in with the crowd, talked briefly to various groups and moved on. Within twenty minutes results became visible but Wardle did not feel happy about them.

	Like all amateurs, the captives tended to overact. Many of those who'd been walking erect and secretly incubating a lovely spirit of defiance now put on grossly exaggerated expressions of humility and made a point of exhibiting them to baffled guards. Twenty Stames ceremoniously sat down in front of three Kastans and favored them with a unanimous look of oh-death-where-is-thy-sting.

	Holden ambled up and Wardle greeted him bitterly with, "Look at that mob of raw beginners. They were feeling their oats and have been told to relax. Now you'd think the entire bunch was sickening for something."

	"That's an idea," said Holden.

	"Eh?"

	"The Kastan war economy is partly dependent on slave labor. An epidemic would make a nice, effective form of sabotage, not to mention the hob it would play with their organization here."

	"An epidemic of what?"

	"Soap," said Holden.

	"How about talking sense, just for a pleasant change?" Wardle suggested.

	Ignoring that, Holden exclaimed, "Here's Foley." He waited until the other arrived, went on, "Just the man we want. What's the capacity of the hospital?"

	"Thirty," said Foley. "Why?"

	"What do you think this butcher Machimbar would do if three hundred prisoners flopped together?"

	"Nothing. Not a thing. He'd let 'em die. He'd say the hospital is full and that Kastan guards have first call on his services. Machimbar is the sort who does only the minimum necessary to justify his rank and position and, if possible, prevent himself from being drafted to a combat area."

	"A shirker of responsibility, is he?"

	"More than that—he's a thoroughly selfish swine."

	"He'll get his," promised Holden, "before we're through."

	"What's on your mind—other than water?" asked Wardle.

	A whistle shrilled across the yard before the other could reply. Prisoners assembled in long lines and started filing into their barrack-blocks. Guards prowled along the lines, bawling and blustering, urging them to hurry.

	There was one small but significant incident. A lame Stame stumbled and fell out the shuffling ranks. Swearing at him, a guard raised his whip. The Stame straightened, gazed coldly into the eyes of his enemy until the other gave way and the whip drooped unused.

	"We haven't a lot of time," commented Wardle. "Let's hope we've got enough or can make enough."

-

	Cheminais put in some fast manipulating that night. He tended to three doors in his own block, two in the adjoining one. A dozen, prisoners made the twenty-yard dash between blocks in semidarkness, got across unheard, unseen. A council of war was held in the Terran's room.

	"We've several problems," began Wardle. "They've got to be settled in any way solvable within existing circumstances. First, there's the beacon."

	"Has it been discovered?" asked Partha-ak-Waym.

	"Not so far. We've built it, linked it to a power line and that's all. If the Kastans happen to find it, there's a good chance they'll assume it to be the work of one of their own signal corps. Even if they do get incurably curious it may take them a couple of months to make sure that no Kastan outfit knows anything about it."

	"Not sharing our outlook," put in Holden, "they won't take it for granted that it's a product of naughty prisoners."

	"Well, what's the problem?" Partha persisted.

	"The forest gang did hard but unskilled work. They sneaked away all the stuff that McAlpin and Pye hid among the trees, erected it according to their instructions. Now it needs technicians to make final adjustments and start it radiating. Daytimes McAlpin and Pye can't slip away for more than five minutes at a go. They say they've got to have three or four uninterrupted hours to get the beacon functioning." He paused, added pointedly, "Union forces don't know the location of Gathin—until the beacon tells 'em."

	"I can find some technicians among my men," suggested Partha. "If you can get them into the forest

	"This is our own problem and we're going to cope with it in our own way," declared Wardle. "We'll give McAlpin and Pye a night out. They'll go over the wall."

	"You mean—escape?" Partha voiced the word as though even now it had a slight touch of blasphemy.

	"Not for keeps. They'll come back and report for work in the morning as usual. As I said before, we've got to keep the Kastans soothed. However, it might give all prisoners a boost if you let the news go round that we've been outside. Better warn them, though, not to mess things up by behaving as if they're as good as out themselves. They aren't out—yet."

	"But to get over that wall is impossible."

	'"We'll admit it after we've found it can't be done," said Wardle. "And not before." Dismissing the point, he carried on to the second problem. "About ten thousand are in this jail but four hundred thousand on Gathin. We've a mere tithe of the whole. We've got to contact other prisons, persuade them to join in with us and take action at the same time. There are seven within easy reach. If they're the same size as this one, that means another seventy thousand men available."

-

	Partha pursed his lips and frowned. "There is no communication between prisons."

	"Then communication must be established. It's got to be done and will be done—and here's how." Wardle registered a faint smile as he continued, "You may not realize it, but to Terran eyes most Aluesines look remarkably alike. So also do Stames."

	. "Terrans look much alike to us," said Partha.

	"It's highly probable that Kastans have similar trouble in distinguishing one from another," Wardle pointed out. "Adjacent prisons have forestry parties working almost alongside ours. If some prisoners swapped places, their respective guards wouldn't notice the difference."

	"If they did notice, they wouldn't care," suggested Holden. "One bunch of slaves is as good as another."

	"Maybe," Wardle conceded. "But a scheme can always be wrecked by one individual's officiousness." He returned attention to Partha. "You must find a number of volunteers, all officers capable of restoring and exercising their own authority, all able propagandists for the new viewpoint. They will join a forestry gang and switch into one from another prison."

	"That can be done," agreed Partha. "There is one difficulty. An exchange is a two-way arrangement. It needs the co-operation of others who mentally are still slaves conditioned never to disobey."

	"The Kastans haven't issued any orders about captives returning to their own jail. You can't disobey a command that has never been given. Besides, to change prisons is not to escape."

	"Yes, that is true. Leave this task to me."

	"We'll have to. We've no choice. A Terran can't swap. Among a bunch of eight-footers he'd be as conspicuous as a circus midget." Leaving it at that, Wardle said, "Now to our third problem. Prisoners must hold themselves in restraint until arrives the right moment to strike together and effectively. Premature action by individuals or groups could be fatal to our plans. We've got to insure that they don't jump the gun. Any suggestions?"

	"They need a diversion," opined

	Holden. "One good hullabaloo would keep them happy for a month."

	"Can you offer a suitable gag?"

	"Yair," said Holden. He chewed vigorously, let go with a soul-shaking, "A-a-argh!" and fell flat. Then he curled up violently until his knees rammed into his chest, his eyes rolled under the lids to show only the whites, a long spurt of foam came from his writhing lips. It was a sight sufficiently revolting to turn the onlookers' stomachs.

	"A-a-argh!" groaned Holden, most horribly. More foam appeared. Watching Stames and Aluesines bugged their eyes at him. Even Wardle felt a spasm of alarm.

	Making a remarkable recovery, Holden got up, went to the basin, washed his mouth out, gargled a couple of times. "All it needs is a little practice."

	"What good will it do?" inquired Partha, studying him as one would a maniac.

	"A sick slave cannot work. A hundred sick slaves cannot work. A thousand sick—"

	"Show me how," ordered Partha, making up his mind.

	Shaving off a sliver of soap, Holden put it in the other's mouth, doing it like mailing a letter. "Now chew. All right, fall down. Curl up and moan. Louder than that, much louder. Your eyes, man, your eyes—roll them up until you can look at your brains!"

	General Partha-ak-Waym lay curled up and rolled 'em. It was extremely effective since Aluesine eyeballs were pale orange in color. He looked awful.

	Within short time ten Aluesines and eight Stames were groaning and foaming on the floor. It was, thought Wardle privately, the most beautiful chore ever thought up for a bunch of military brasshats.

	"Good," he said when the horrid performance ended. "Find a battalion of volunteers for that and get them busy rehearsing. The show goes on at breakfast-time tomorrow. It should provide a satisfactory emotional outlet and bollix the Kastans more than somewhat."

	The council of war ended. The members departed accompanied by Cheminais who was to lock them back in.

	When they'd all gone, Wardle turned to Holden. "You said it needed practice. You've had plenty. Where'd you get it?"

	"At about age four. Whenever I rolled and foamed my loving mother would give me the moon."

	"What a repulsive little brat you must have been. If I were your father, I'd have given you a taste of hickory."

	"He did," admitted Holden, grimacing. "Whenever he caught me at it." He switched attention to the silently listening Casasola. "For Pete's sake shut up and let me get a word in edgewise."

	"We're wasting time," commented Wardle, impatiently. "The longest night doesn't last forever. We've got to get two fellows over the wall—we've not erected a secret beacon for nothing."

-

	Lying on his back he edged beneath his bed, fiddled around with the underside of it, edged out again. He was now gripping a grooved wooden stock with the truck-spring fastened across one end. A wire ran taut across the spring's curve. Farther back in the stock was a winder and a simple trigger mechanism which Casasola had made in the workshops.

	"This," he remarked, "is where we put to use our training in the exploitation of rudimentary supplies. Learn to make the best of what is available, they said. And do not despise primitive things, for man conquered the animal world with no better." He held a hand out to Casasola. "The bolts."

	Casasola gave him the machined nails which by now had small aluminum vanes fitted into their slots.

	"The string."

	Impassively Casasola handed over a ball of fine twine. Measuring it along the room, Wardle cut off a length of approximately a hundred and twenty feet, doubled it, fastened its middle to the tail of a bolt. Six inches behind the bolt he knotted-in a sliver of wood to act as a spreader, holding the strings some three or four inches apart.

	"Open a window, someone, and watch for a guard." He stood waiting while Pye tied one of the string's two ends to the coil of stronger cord that Holden had stolen from the quarry. "Remember," he said to Pye, "when everything is ready you'll have less than ten minutes."

	"I know."

	"Too much delay will get you a dozen slugs in the guts."

	"So what?"

	"If you or Mac want to back out, say so—we'll understand."

	"Go jump," suggested Pye.

	"What d'you think I am?" put in McAlpin, indignantly.

	"Guard coming," hissed Holden from the window. "Here he is, the big, flatfooted lug. Right opposite." A pause, followed by, "Now he's passed."

	He stepped aside. Wardle knelt by the window and steadied the crossbow on its ledge. Taking careful aim at the distant wall-top, he squeezed the trigger. The arbelest gave a slight jerk as its driving-wire slapped dully against two small silencers neatly carved from Holden's rubber heels.

	The bolt shot into the night, fled three-quarters of the way to the wall, pulled up sharp as its trailing string snagged on a window-frame splinter and failed to pay out. In the darkness the bolt swooped back, hit the barrack-block two floors lower down. There sounded a loud clunk, a clatter of broken glass, a startled Stame exclamation.

	Wardle cussed in a low voice, peered out and down for signs of Stame activity beneath. There wasn't any. Whoever had been shaken out of his beauty sleep had wisely decided to do nothing about it, probably because nothing effective could be done.

	"A minute and a half gone," announced Pye.

	They pulled back the tethered bolt, shaved the splinter from the ledge, rearranged the string to run more freely. Again Wardle took aim a few inches above the flare-path. The bolt sped out, went straight over the wall, stopped as it reached the following string's limit.

	Slowly and with care they drew on the string. Infuriatingly, the bolt wriggled between the spikes and fell clear. Now they reeled in with frantic haste but again it clunked the barrack-block with a sound hugely magnified by the stillness of night. However, no glass was busted this time.

	"Four minutes gone," said Pye.

	The third shot proved just as futile, produced yet another crack of metal against stone. When the bolt came in they found the string-separator had broken. Hurriedly they replaced it.

	"Six and a half minutes," informed Pye, morbidly.

	"He's on his way back by now," said Wardle. "We'd better wait for him to pass again."

-

	Clustering in the gloom, they listened and waited, hearing little save each other's breathing. Presently the guard went by along the wall-top, his big figure magnified to the monstrous by the flare of light. He did not look unusually alert, showed no sign of having been alarmed by strange noises.

	When he'd gone from view, Wardle fired again. The bolt shot out with a very faint hiss. Its aluminum vanes shone briefly as it crossed the wall-top. Holden gently drew on the string and a few feet came into the room before it went taut.

	"Hallelujah!" he said.

	He now pulled only one end, giving a couple of fierce jerks to dislodge the distant separator. It stuck stubbornly a short time, came free. The string then reeled in easily. As it did so its other end went out the window taking with it the strong cord.

	Before long Holden found himself pulling in cord instead of string. There was now a double line of cord extending from the room, across a forty-foot gap with a sixty-foot drop below, and terminating at one or more wall-top spikes over which it was looped.

	"How long have we now?" asked Wardle.

	"Four minutes."

	"Not enough. We'll have to wait again. Got your own cord ready?"

	"Sure thing," said Pye.

	They waited. The guard's footsteps could be heard coming back. He seemed to take an inordinate time to get near. Everything depended on where his attention lay, how observant he was. The flarepath was a brilliant but narrow beam directed dead along the wall-top but there was enough side-glow to reveal the horizontally stretched string for a distance of several feet.

	The guard neared the critical point. They held their breaths as they watched him. Strolling boredly along, he halted beside the looped spike, looked outward instead of inward, gave a wide yawn and moved onward.

	"Thank heaven we blacked that rope," exclaimed Holden.

	"Now!" urged Wardle.

	Pye scrambled out the window, let himself hang from the cords by holding one in each grip. With body dangling over the drop he worked himself along hand over hand. His legs swung wildly as he strove to make speed. The cord creaked but held.

	In this manner he reached the wall-top and still had come no raucous shout, no crack of a gun. Desperately he swung himself up sidewise, got handholds on two spikes, a toehold between two more. Levering himself over the triple row he rolled right into the flarepath.

	Still prone, fearful of the light and whoever might look along its beam, he grabbed his own coil of rope, looped it around one of the opposite spikes. How he got over this other triple row was not clear to the watchers. His body humped itself, there was some momentary fumbling, he vanished from sight as he slid down outside the wall.

	"It took him four and a half minutes," said Holden.

	"Seemed like ten years to me," contributed Wardle.

	The guard mooched back. There were now two looped spikes for him to discover, one on each side of his path. Would he see them? He did not. In the same manner as before he ambled by and his footsteps faded.

-

	McAlpin was swinging in midair almost before the guard had disappeared. He crossed the gap a good deal faster than Pye had done but had more difficulty in getting over the spikes. All the same, he made it. His shape vanished over the other side of the wall.

	Unfastening one end of the cord, Holden pulled on the other end, got it all back into the room. To leave it out for several hours would be to tempt Providence. Perforce the outer rope would have to remain dangling, but only the couple of inches around the spike could be visible to the guard, the rest hanging in darkness down the wall.

	"Just thought of something," said Holden. "A fellow parading along a flarepath can see pretty well to the right or left but is somewhat blinded if he looks straight ahead. I doubt whether that clunker could find Pye's rope even if you told him it was there."

	"We're not counting on that," Wardle told him. "We are betting on a state of mind. Excepting on a peculiar dump called Terra nobody ever breaks out of jail—but nobody!"

	After that they organized a constant watch at the window, taking turns one at a time while the others slept. It was an hour before dawn when the escapees returned.

	Cheminais, keeping red-rimmed eyes directed on the wall, knew that their rope was still in position because every guard had been observed and none had so far interfered.

	A guard went past, gun clasped in a spade-sized hand. A minute later McAlpin heaved himself over the outer spikes, pulled up half of the doubled cord and slung it down the inside wall. Then he rolled across the flarepath, got over the next lot of spikes with the same difficulty as before, slid down into darkness.

	Apparently his thirty pounds of extra weight helped heave his companion up the outer wall as he went down the inner one. He'd no sooner gone than Pye popped up like a cork from a bottle, looped the cord and followed the other down inside. The cord shook violently, fell to ground.

	Awakening the others, Cheminais informed, "They're back."

	They let the guard pass again before tossing their own cord out the window. A weight came upon it, they hauled together. McAlpin rose into the window-gap, struggled through, trod on someone's toes and received a couple of choice oaths by way of welcome. The cord went down again, fished up Pye.

	"How did it go?" Wardle asked them, anxiously.

	"Topnotch," assured McAlpin. "The beacon is now bawling its head off."

	"What d'you think will happen if it's picked up by a Kastan ship ahead of one of ours?"

	"They'll trace it to Gathin. They know Gathin is a Kastan stronghold. Therefore the beacon must be an official one even if they haven't been notified of it. That's logical, isn't it? The alternative is an illegal beacon and that's plain silly."

	"Let's hope you're right. You've done a good job."

	"Like to know the toughest part of it?" McAlpin showed him a pair of red-scared palms. "Climbing sixty feet of thin cord."

	"Dead easy," scoffed Holden.

	"It would be for you," McAlpin retorted, "being several generations nearer to the monkeys."

	Holden let that pass with the contempt it deserved.

	"Well," prompted Casasola, shocking him with sudden speech, "why don't you say something?"

-

	The multiple line-ups for breakfast were divisible into two parts: those aware and those unaware of what was brewing. Partha had considered it desirable to keep a goodly number in ignorance and thus support the play with an audience that could be depended upon to behave plausibly.

	Stewed sludge was served. Ten thousand sat around scooping at their wooden bowls. The last and slowest had hardly finished when Guard-Major Slovits blew the whistle.

	Eighty prisoners judiciously scattered around the yard promptly collapsed, doubled up, foamed, yelled bloody murder. The mob about to make for the gates stopped and stared. Near the gates four hefty guards gazed aghast at an afflicted Stame who was making like a circus acrobat with a thousand devils in his belly.

	Among the guards there followed the inevitable moment of chronic indecision during which another fifty prisoners artistically added themselves to the sufferers on the floor. They vied with each other in producing the most foam, the loudest screams, the worst agonies.

	Prisoners not in the plot milled around like scared sheep, watched themselves for similar symptoms. A number of guards became pinned within the mob, strove to force their way out. Stames and Aluesines dropped and had six fits in front of them, alongside of them, impeding them to the utmost. The mob pushed and shoved as those nearest tried to back away from each successive victim.

	One Stame standing in what looked like shocked silence suddenly let go with an ear-splitting shriek, flung long, skinny arms around an adjacent guard, slid down foaming and slobbering all over the Kastan's pants and jackboots. He got away with it, receiving not so much as a flick of the whip. The guard looked down in horror, made for some place else good and fast.

	Slovits pounded heavily into the office building, reappeared a moment later with the prison commander. A solid rank of sixteen Aluesines immediately strove to please both of them by falling flat, foaming, groaning, dribbling and rolling orange-colored eyeballs.

	Noting that Festerhead himself was now among those present another couple of hundred piled into the act all over the yard, added their howls to the general uproar. Guards shouted unbearable orders, Festerhead bellowed and waved his arms, Slovits blew the whistle ten times.

	More individuals collapsed here and there in response to surreptitious signals from officers. Some of them were decided whole-hoggers who worked themselves into such a frenzy they swallowed their soap and began to puke in dead earnest.

	At this point the captives who were uninformed got into a panic. The rumor went around like wildfire that something called "the black death" was highly contagious. There followed a concerted rush for the open gates.

	Four guards who still had their wits about them moved swiftly, slammed shut the gates in the faces of the leading rank. The mob churned around a piece, made up its collective mind, headed for the sanctuary of the barrack-blocks. It split into a hundred racing lines threading their ways through a carpet of rolling bodies. Among the runners were many more plotters ordered to hold off until the last. These now made confusion worse confounded by collapsing in the most obstructive places including the barrack-blocks' doorways.

	By now over a thousand were on their backs in the yard, screaming, hooting, hugging their bellies, voicing death rattles and other versions of last gasps. A form of rivalry had arisen between Aluesines and Stames, each striving to outdo the other in putting over a melodramatic picture of hell's torments. The resulting scene was like something out of the galaxy's maddest madhouse. The din was deafening.

-

	Festerhead and his forces were swamped by the sheer magnitude and enthusiasm of this mass-display. Grouping together outside the office building, they scowled at the littered yard but did nothing. This wasn't mutiny, it wasn't disobedience. It was a phenomenon unheard-of, unthought-of. No mention of it existed in the Kastan book of rules and there was no official formula for coping with it.

	A Stame who secretly admired his own talent as an actor crawled laboriously on all fours up to Guard-Major Slovits, hung out a purple tongue and croaked, "Water! For mercy's sake, water."

	The guard next to Slovits swung a huge boot and kicked him straight in the teeth. The Stame flopped sidewise, spat blood and emitted moans that were real. Among the prone army of mock-sufferers several hundreds of eyes made vengeful note of the kicker's identity. Unaware of this, the guard drew back his foot for a second belt at the victim.

	"What are you doing, fool?" rasped Festerhead. "Is that the way to make them ready for work?"

	Putting down the foot, the guard furtively shifted behind a couple of his fellows. From that vantage point he stared sullenly at the injured Stame.

	"Where is Doctor-Major Machimbar?" Festerhead demanded of Slovits.

	"He is absent today, may it please you, commander," informed Slovits.

	"He would be. And it does not please me." Festerhead thought hard and fast. "Something must be done. Within the hour headquarters will be pestering us with awkward questions as to why our working parties have not appeared."

	"Yes, commander. What do you suggest?"

	"Send twelve men into each barrack-block. They will march out all the fit prisoners and make them carry the sick ones inside. "After that has been done, parade the fit ones in the yard, select from them any with medical experience, rush the rest to work—at the double."

	"As you order, commander.'.'

	Slovits saluted, faced his men, favored them with the necessary bellowing. Parties of twelve split off and headed for each block.

	The fit came out, picked up the sick, commenced bearing them to their respective dormitories. It took quite a time because every now and then a body-bearer would collapse and have to be carried in his turn. Thus it happened that the entire complement of one room, consisting of twenty opportunist Aluesines, contrived to have themselves borne to bed by a bunch of sour-faced Stames who did not see the obvious way of dodging the chore until it was too late.

	Finally the fit were paraded in the yard, the fit being defined as those able to stand. Two dozen of them dropped in their tracks just as Slovits opened his mouth to bawl. Slovits closed the mouth while the end files wearily picked up the bodies and lugged them away. Five of the luggers swiftly decided that it requires less effort to be carried than to carry, whereupon they flopped and put on the foaming act. More end files broke off to take those away.

	At that point Slovits came to the end of his patience. Stabbing a large finger at those still perpendicular, he roared, "All former doctors, surgeons, hospital orderlies and similar personnel will take six paces to the front."

	Foley marched forward bawling with equal loudness, "One, two, three, four, five, six." He halted.

	Eight Aluesines and eleven Stames did likewise, yelling in unison and finishing with a simultaneous, "Six." As if that were a signal, two of them bit the dust.

	Slovits glared a moment at the two, his face twitching, his fingers working around. Then he said to the survivors, "Follow me."

	Obediently they traipsed behind him to the office building. Three who preferred bed to Festerhead shamelessly gained their ends by collapsing on the way. Four more did the same during the ten minutes' wait outside the open door through which Festerhead could be heard shouting indistinguishable remarks into a telephone.

	At the prison gates the situation was no better. Long files of captives shuffled outward, bowls and spoons clutched in boney hands, worn boots flapping or bare feet padding on the concrete. Every fifty yards or so the files halted, doubled-up bodies were dragged out the way and borne back to the blocks. Then another fifty yards advance, a halt, more bodies.

	For once the escorting Kastans did not yell, swear or swing their whips. They marched with the column, urging it onward but viewing its gradual loss of numbers with cold-blooded indifference. So far as they were concerned an epidemic was a calamity strictly for the brass-hats. Let them do the worrying. That's what they were paid for, wasn't it?

	Festerhead slammed down the phone, came out the door, cast a savage eye over the waiting eleven and harshed, "You will remain in the blocks and tend to the sick. I hold you responsible for restoring them to work with the minimum of delay. If you fail, you will be punished." He let his glare linger a moment upon each in turn. "The punishment will be severe."

	"If we do fail," answered Foley, calmly positive, "the consequences will be more severe—the entire prison will be down and out, Kastans included."

	"It is for you to prevent it."

	"With what?" demanded Foley, greatly daring. "We have no medical kit, no supplies of any sort."

	"I authorize you to make use of whatever facilities are in the hospital," Festerhead snapped.

	"What if Doctor-Major Machimbar refuses us those facilities?"

	"He will do nothing of the kind," declared Festerhead. "I am the prison commander. My orders will be obeyed. You will employ whatever supplies are available within the hospital and get the prisoners back to work." He turned to go, added as a pointed afterthought, "Or you will suffer."

	One of the listening Stames started suffering then and there, flat on his back, with his feet trying to tuck themselves behind his ears.

-

	Holden paced up and down the room, glanced through the windows at the starlit night and mused aloud. "It was a spectacular show but very much overdone. A Terran guard wouldn't have been fooled. They'd have had the high-pressure hoses out in one minute flat."

	"How come you're such an authority on Terran prison techniques?" asked Alpin McAlpin.

	"I know what I know."

	"Sure thing you do. Bet your past is buried in the mists of iniquity."

	"Quit needling," ordered Wardle, with some impatience. "Here's Partha and his boys. Let's get down to business."

	Cheminais entered first, the lock-picks jangling carelessly in one hand. Then Partha followed by twenty Stames and Aluesines. The Terrans made sitting-space for them on the beds. Outside, a guard mooched along the flarepath and was blissfully ignorant of' conspiratorial activity almost within hearing distance.

	Wardle started the discussion with, "As probably you know, twenty-one managed to exchange with adjacent forest-parties today. Some of them will have to swap over a second or third time to spread themselves evenly around the local jails." He fixed attention on Partha. "The number isn't enough. Twice as many are needed. Can you raise more volunteers?"

	"After today's performance," said Partha, permitting himself the ghost of a smile, "I don't think volunteers will be hard to find." 

	"According to what we've learned," Wardle went on, "there are twelve prisons within one day's march of here. Seven of these are almost within sight. We are getting some of our own men into those seven. We'd better send more, just in case they can find a way of wangling themselves into the other five."

	"It's worth a try," Partha agreed. "An army of one hundred and twenty thousand is better than one of seventy thousand. I have heard that there are forty prisons on Gathin, also several new ones not yet completed but possibly holding recently captured men. How nice if we could extend our influence over the whole lot."

	"I've thought of that. The others are far away, some halfway around the planet. We could get at them by desperate and tedious measures, that's for sure. But it would take too long and the trouble isn't worth it. If we can make a major break in this area, and snatch enough guns, we can seize all the other prisons, one at a time, by main force."

	Partha thought it over, objected, "The sole object of capturing prisons is to free the prisoners and thereby pile up the strength of the Gath Army. That's correct, isn't it?"

	"Yes," said Wardle.

	"There will be a formidable difference between prisoners conditioned by freedom propaganda and those who've never heard of it, never imagined it Here we're building a mass of potential warriors filled with new hope and eager to fight. Elsewhere, a prison will give up no more than a mob of bewildered slaves."

	"How long d'you think it will take a bewildered slave to see his chance to bust a Kastan right on the nose?" inquired Wardle.

	"I can judge only by myself," Partha confessed, "and in my case it took too long."

	"That's because you're a general. You're trained to be militarily correct, to look at everything from the viewpoint of personal responsibility. The lower ranks have no such inhibitions. Put guns in their hands, tell them that they are Gaths, that honor may be regained by kicking Kastans in the guts and"—he made an emphatic gesture—"I give them two minutes to absorb the facts and start shooting."

	"I hope you're right," said Partha, doubtfully.

-

	"Wait and see. Who put over the most extravagant displays this morning? The boys in the ranks. It wasn't an officer who sicked all over a guard's shiny boots."

	Partha looked pained.

	"Anyway, let's leave it at that. The real test will come before long. Right now we've something important to be settled." Standing in front of Partha, and speaking with great seriousness, Wardle said, "When the proper time arrives there will be two ways of obtaining guns."

	"Two?"

	"Yes. And it's for you to decide which way is preferred."

	"Why me?"

	"Because at the moment you are the only serving general in the forces of the Gath Republic. Therefore you are in command of those forces and the spokesman for that republic."

	"I see. What is my choice?"

	"Terran task forces will drop guns and other war supplies into prisons ready to receive and use them. They will also drop paratroops and special combat teams to take nearby barracks, armories and strongpoints." He paused to let that sink in, added, "Alternatively, the Gath Republic will fight its own battles and win its own victory with arms seized from its enemies."

	Getting to his feet, Partha held himself erect, hands at sides, and said quietly, "The fight will be harder, the losses more grievous—but we prefer to face the struggle on our own." Behind him the listening Stames and Aluesines gave a murmur of agreement.

	"Back on Earth," commented Wardle, smiling, "the betting was forty to one that you'd make that decision. The entire Gath Republic idea was based on the supposition that every intelligent being has his pride, that he measures it by his own ability to restore it and maintain it. That goes even for a prisoner, even for a slave." He smiled again. "So Terra asks a favor of you."

	"A favor?" Partha was startled.

	"We ask that the Gath Republic times its first assault to suit our convenience."

	"The greater plan?"

	"Correct. The chief curse of space-war is that of detecting and intercepting an enemy fleet. The void is so vast and velocities so tremendous that a blip on a screen can come ten seconds too late and a hundred thousand miles wide of the mark."

	"So—?"

	"So a great revolt on Gathin will bring the major part of the Kastan fleet here as fast as it can come. They'll just naturally concentrate on a danger-point so near to their home-world of Kasta. Remember, we're only twelve days' flight from there." He gave the same smile once more. "Terra would consider it neighborly of the Gath Republic if you timed your shenanigans for when we've, taken up positions to intercept the Kastan fleet."

	"And when is that likely to be?"

	"Not more than eight days after our beacon has given them Gathin's location."

	"It may be a month before they pick up the beacon," complained Partha. "Or two months, perhaps three."

	"Not with what we've got zooming around and listening out," answered Wardle. "They are expecting a beacon to function sooner or later, they're hoping for it and constantly seeking it. Finding it is a matter of systematic search and not of haphazard luck. They're likely to trace the beacon and react to it almost any time as from now."

	"All right. We'll strike when Terran fleets are ready to take advantage of the situation. Anything more?"

-

	"One item. The doctors have got to make some pretense of coping with the epidemic. But we don't want to play the Kastans' game by curing everyone without exception. So we'd better reduce the number falling sick tomorrow morning. Let's cut it down to two or three hundred and maintain it at that until everyone has had a turn. Foley can explain to Festerhead that he's keeping the trouble in check but it's got to run its course."

	"Yes, we can arrange it that way," agreed Partha. "The prisoners are getting psychological satisfaction out of that form of rebellion and so we mustn't drop it altogether. I'll order the number to be kept down to a judicious size."

	"I'd like you also to order the doctors to support Foley a hundred per cent next time he argues with Festerhead," Wardle went on. "He wants to blame everything on poor and insufficient food. That diagnosis has got to be unanimous. Maybe it'll get us something better, maybe it won't, but there's no harm in trying."

	"The doctors will be told," Partha wet thin lips as he thought of a few crusts of bread in addition to the lousy stew. "Enfeebled Gaths versus overfed Kastans is tough enough. One extra mouthful per meal would serve as a big step toward victory."

	"You took a thousand steps when you switched from slaves to potential conquerors. There's less than another hundred steps to go. You'll make it even if you have to crawl, even with empty bellies."

	"We shall," affirmed Partha, thoroughly determined. He followed Cheminais outside, his military staff trailing after him.

	The door closed. A guard wandered past along the wall-top, kept dozey attention upon the jungle and the sky.

	"Things are building up nicely," opined. Holden, "to a wholesale massacre by soup-maddened Gaths."

	Wardle stretched himself tiredly on his bed. "Let me sleep. I wish to dream of T-bone steaks smothered, with button mushrooms."

	He closed his eyes, gradually slipped; into the unconscious. Holden lay drooling a bit, got off his bed, went to Wardle and shook him awake.

	"Aloysius, why are you so cruel to me?"

	"Drop dead!" bawled Wardle, aggravated beyond measure.

	The guard came to an abrupt halt in the flarepath, stared straight toward the open windows and yelled, "Fosham gobitsch!" .

	Holden went to the window and shouted back, "You heard what the nice gentleman said—drop dead."

	"You will not speak dwarf-language," ordered the guard, tough and menacing. "You will go to sleep."

	"Yair," said Holden. "That's an idea." Finding his bed, he reposed on it and in due course awoke everyone else with his snores.

-

	Thirteen days crawled past. The sufferers from what Holden called "saponic mastication" had now been further reduced to eighty every morning, merely to keep Festerhead soothed. Doctor-Major Machimbar continued to display lordly indifference to any sick other than guards, but did allow Foley and the others the free run of the hospital.

	The beacon functioned twenty-eight hours per day. Nobody knew for certain whether the Kastans were still unaware of it or whether they had found it and were seeking an official reason for its existence. The latter possibility was now filling Partha and his staff with mounting apprehension.

	One hundred and forty Stames and Aluesines had changed places with forestry parties from elsewhere, smuggled themselves into all seven adjacent prisons and three of the five that were farther away. They had done good work. All ten jails were now mentally conditioned for revolt and had riddled themselves with soap-disease as a means of maintaining morale through the waiting period.

	In the middle of that night Pye was taking his turn to remain awake. He sprawled across his bed, gazed wearily at a spangle of stars gleaming in the window-gaps, counted the minutes toward the time when Casasola would take over. He yawned for the hundredth stretch, fidgeted with boredom.

	Faint clicks came from Holden's bed.

	Pye sat up wide-eyed and listened. The bed went on clicking.

	Scrambling hurriedly across, Pye snatched up the other's jacket, extracted his pocket-watch. Opening its case he slowly rotated it in the horizontal plane. The clicks faded, ceased, resumed, suddenly became loud enough to awake the whole room.

	Pop-pop, pipper-pop.

	"Eureka!" exclaimed Wardle. He rubbed hands together in delight and satisfaction. "They're halfway through. Never mind, they'll repeat until they know we've got it."

	The seven sat around and listened carefully while the pseudo-watch continued to emit pipper-pops. The sounds went on for ten minutes, ceased for one, started all over again.

	"How about me sneaking out to interrupt the beacon?" asked Alpin McAlpin, eagerly.

	"Not worth the trouble of getting over the wall," Wardle decided. "I can tend to it myself while working out there tomorrow. Cut off and on twelve times at one minute intervals, that's what you said, didn't you?"

	"Yes. We've got to give them an intermittent period to show that we've heard them."

	"It'll be done. Doesn't need a radio technician just to work a switch up and down."

	"One hour before dawn, five days hence," commented Pye, still listening to the pipper-pops. "That's quicker than we anticipated."

	"No matter. They'll keep postponing it so long as they get no assenting signal from us," said Wardle. "We'll interrupt the beacon early tomorrow. Five days should be enough. Besides, I want to get back to Terra. I've had nearly as much as I can take of this dump."

	"Me, too/' indorsed Pye, fervently.

	Holden chose that moment to let go with an unmusical howl of, "Home, home, swe-e-eet home. Be it ever so humble—"

	Outside, a guard blundered heavy-footed along the flarepath, shouted a string of incomprehensible words toward the barrack-block. He sounded arrogant and liverish.

	Going to a window, Holden looked out and said with mock humility, "You will not speak louse-language. You will go take a walk." Then he ducked out of sight and flopped on his bed.

	The watch, now closed and back in his pocket, was still emitting faint clicks in the morning. The same theme over and over again: five days hence, one hour before dawn.

-

	On the last day there reappeared the old menace of a betraying atmosphere. In the yard at eventide ten thousand sat or mooched around with studied listlessness that gave no visual hint of what was coming. Yet over all lay a strange, invisible tenseness that could be smelled and felt.

	Again the guards responded to instinct, sixth-sense or whatever it was. They became fidgety, nervous and tended to group together with fingers on or near triggers. But such was their conditioning that each inwardly sought the cause of his hunch outside the walls or in the sky, anywhere but inside the prison.

	Partha came up to Wardle and said, "The men are behaving very well. All the same, the Kastans are sniffing around for trouble. Do you suppose it might be better if everyone left the yard and went to their rooms?"

	"It would be a radical break in routine," Wardle pointed out. "Prisoners value this period of petty freedom in which to mix and talk. They never go indoors until they have to. A sudden eagerness to get themselves locked up for the night would arouse the suspicions of a halfwit."

	"You may be right. But there's another hour to go. I fear that among so many may be one or two who'll crack under the strain of waiting and do something stupid."

	"I don't think that would spoil our plans," opined Wardle. "The Kastans are used to such foolishness. How many prisoners have committed suicide these last four years, and how many did it by inviting a bullet from a guard?"

	Partha frowned, said nothing.

	"An hour is an hour," finished Wardle. "We've got to sit it out."

	He watched Partha walk apprehensively away. Then he leaned against the wall and let his gaze linger on the armory.

	Behind those big steel doors lay a treasure that must be won. A direct assault on the armory, or on the platoon at the gate, would bring the attackers under murderous fire from twenty-two guards high up atop the wall. Therefore the wall-top guards would have to be dealt with first. It was going to be tricky and need excellent timing.

	Agreed plans were still being viewed and reviewed in his mind when the hour ended and prisoners filed into the barrack-blocks. They shuffled indoors, striving hard to maintain the usual appearance of slowness and reluctance. The natural glumness of the Stames save them a considerable advantage over the Aluesines at such moments as this.

-

	Now there was only the long night in which to make final preparations. Door-locks clicked shut, guards left the blocks, crossed the yard to their own quarters. The last of them had not gone from sight before Cheminais was out and busily unlocking. He'd had to make an early start, there being enough doors to occupy his attention for three hours.

	"Your part of the game completed?" Wardle asked Holden.

	"Sure thing. Dareuth will lead the quarry gang in a rush to the garbage-dump. On it are forty old tin cans filled with alamite and complete with detonators." He gave a wistful sigh. "Wish we could have smuggled more in. There's a big steel barrel down at the quarry. It would have made a beautiful bang if we could have trundled it through the gates."

	Wardle gave a shrug of indifference, lay down, arranged his blanket over himself. "I for one am going to get some sleep."

	"Can you, at a time like this?" asked Pye.

	"Dunno. But I'm going to try." He shut his eyes. The room went silent. Sleep did not come to any of them.

	Eventually Wardle found himself at a window watching the regular passing and repassing of a guard and impatiently counting off the hours, the minutes. Now and again he eyed the twinkling starfield. Out in the dark, high up and far away, a big array of black, snouty spaceships waited in ambush. He knew they were there and found the knowledge comforting.

	At ten minutes before deadline they were all by the windows. They let a guard go past, dropped a rope to ground-level. Holden climbed over the window-ledge, got a grip, made ready to slide down.

	He paused, grinned up into their faces and said with unnecessary loudness, "Hoot M'Goot rides again."

	"S-s-sh!" hissed Wardle, "Get down, you imbecile!" He glanced anxiously along the wall-top, was relieved to see no angry figure pounding back.

	Holden slid into lower darkness. When the rope ceased vibrating they hauled it up. Looking out and down, they saw his vague, shadowy figure flit across to the base of the wall.

	"Two minutes to go," announced Wardle.

	They took up cross-bows, wound springs to full tension, placed bolts in grooves and positioned themselves abreast by the windows. Elsewhere were similar scenes, one figure silently lurking by the bottom of the wall, half a dozen armed ones standing behind sixth-floor windows. The night was slightly darker than usual, the flarepath looked more brilliant by contrast.

	The guard came back. His movements seemed abnormally slow and lethargic. To nerves drawn taut he appeared to be taking one step per minute.

	Wardle whispered, "I'll break the neck of the fellow who shoots prematurely. We want that clunker's gun to fall inside the wall, not outside or on top."

	"Don't worry," said Pye, icily calm.

	Now the guard came level with the window. Far below, Holden rattled a tin can. The guard halted, stared around. Holden rattled again. The guard unhitched his automatic gun from his shoulder, gripped it in his right hand, bent over and peered down toward the source of the noise.

	"Now!"

	Six arbelests went whup-whup.

	For a horrid moment they thought they'd missed. The guard stayed bent, unmoving, apparently still looking down. An instant later he plunged headlong, not having uttered a sound. Spikes caught and tore the legs of his pants, ripped a boot from his foot before he disappeared. His gun landed with a metallic crash that sounded preternaturally loud. The body hit a second later with a sickening crunch of bone on concrete.

	Over to the left, just out of sight, somebody atop the wall was giving queer whistling gasps. Farther away, on the other side of the jail, a Kastan voice was screaming bloody murder. A light machine-gun, presumably dropped by the screamer, suddenly came into action with a sharp, hard taketa-taketa and the screaming ceased.

	Bolting through the door the six Terrans tried to race downstairs and join Holden in the yard. It wasn't easy. In front a solid column of Stames lurched, jostled and half-fell down the steps, jammed together on every bend and stuck until rearward pressure forced them loose. Behind, a bunch of Aluesines yipped with impatience and used their weight to try drive the mass outdoors. Thus the smaller Terrans became submerged in a raging stream of seven-to-eight-footers and remained there until practically flung into the yard.

	Already a thousand were out and on the rampage, sprinting to their assigned objectives. Two hundred from the block adjoining the gates had been briefed to attack the twelve guards there, also the twelve relief-guards sleeping nearby. Most of these were now within fifty yards of the gates and going fast with no opposition.

	Wardle and the others kept anxious eyes in that direction as the mob from their own block raced across the yard toward the guards' dormitories.

	Those heading for the gates made another thirty yards before astonished guards accepted the evidence of their own eyes. By then it was too late. A big, gaunt Aluesine in the lead swung up a shaped and sharp-edged piece of steel resembling a butcher's cleaver. He flung it at the quickest-witted guard who'd brought gun to shoulder and was fumbling for the trigger. The cleaver missed its target as the guard ducked. A moment later all twelve went down beneath the vengeful mob, not a shot having been fired.

	Over to the right another gang was heading for the garbage dump. Beyond them, a large group of former engineers hustled for the power-plant and the vehicle-park. Prisoners continued to pour out the blocks in their hundreds, adding themselves to various groups as previously ordered.

	The two Kastans patroling the vehicle-park proved more alert and less dumfounded than their fellows had been. Warned by the rising uproar they took refuge behind a couple of huge trucks, rested guns across steel bonnets and opened fire. Nine oncoming prisoners collapsed and lay still. Taketa-taketa went the guns, hosing slugs into the yard.

	Splitting up, the engineers dodged around trucks, climbed over them, crawled underneath them. The guards tried to aim and fire ten ways at once. It couldn't be done. Fighting figures came at them from all directions, they went down for keeps, their weapons were snatched from dead hands.

-

	At that point the Terrans lost sight of what was going on elsewhere. Reaching the dormitory building, they were swept headlong through its doors. In front of them a dozen cat-eyed Aluesines raced along a dark corridor as though it were fully illuminated. A few Stames with them were handicapped by lack of light, tended to falter and stumble. Other Aluesines brushed the Stames impatiently aside and dashed after their fellows.

	Glimpsing narrow stairs at one side, Wardle gladly seized the chance to escape the press of bigger, heavier bodies. He jerked side-wise out of the crowd, gained the steps, pounded upward as fast as he could go. Somebody was puffing and blowing close upon his heels. Glancing over one shoulder he found Foley following and—somewhat to his surprise—the missing Holden who had joined up somehow. Holden was gripping an automatic gun and was the only one of them armed with a weapon worth a hoot. Of the others there was no sign. Presumably they were engaged in the melee lower down.

	On the first floor the slumbering guards had been brought rudely awake by the general hullabaloo and especially by sounds of strife immediately beneath them. Just as Wardle reached the top of the stairs a huge Kastan, attired only in his underpants, came running out of a room with machine-pistol in hand.

	The Terran lacked weight and inches but had the advantage of surprise. What the Kastan had expected to see will never be known but his reaction showed that a recalcitrant prisoner came last on the list. He wasted a valuable moment by letting his mouth hang open and looking thunderstruck.

	Wardle used the same moment to belt him in the belly with the butt of his cross-bow. The Kastan let out an elephantine grunt and bowed low, bringing his head down to convenient reach. Wardle promptly walloped him on the nut with all the strength he could muster. The guard flopped with a crash that shook the floor.

	Flinging away his cross-bow, Wardle stooped to grab up the precious machine-pistol. It was the luckiest movement of his life. A dozen slugs blasted out the open door, went a few inches above his back, knocked chips from the opposite wall. Plunging flat, Wardle rolled madly out of the field of fire.

	"Stay put," warned Holden, still at the top of the stairs. He edged past Foley, crawled cautiously toward the door, poked the snout of his gun around the corner and let fly into the room. Another shower of slugs was his answer.

	Obviously those in the room had no intention of surrendering. Their automatic guns were stacked in the armory but each of them retained his machine-pistol. They were going to fight as long as strength and ammunition held out. The grim alternative was lifelong slavery, without honor, without hope. And this was a mighty poor time to try converting them to a strange Terran viewpoint.

	Momentarily there was an impasse as the Terrans lay in wait outside and dared not rush in, while the Kastans waited inside and dared not charge out. Then sheer pressure of attackers down below forced the surplus upstairs. The first was an excited Aluesine ceremoniously bearing a large and rusty can on which was the legend IMFAT NO-GOLY 111, whatever that meant.

	"Give it to me," snarled Holden. He tossed his gun into Foley's arms, snatched the can from the Aluesine. His fingers fiddled a moment at the top of the can, then his arm swung across the doorway and slung it into the room. "Down!"

	They all lay flat. IMFAT NO-GOLY 111 went off with one hell of a bang that draped a glassless window-frame around a Stame colonel two hundred yards away. Together they dashed into the room. Eleven Kastans were scattered around with some indecision as to which piece was whose.

	The take was eleven more machine-pistols. Now supported by the flood coming up from below, they charged straight into the next room farther along the corridor. It held twelve beds, twelve neatly folded uniforms, but was empty. So also were the remaining rooms on that floor.

	Meanwhile the flood swept higher, was greeted on the third floor with heavily concentrated fire. Bodies rolled down the stairs, blocked the way to others. Stames and Aluesines worked frantically to remove the dead. They made another rush, were again repelled.

	Evidently the Kastans missing from the second floor had joined those above. Some officer of the guard must have had enough time to organize a stand. Since there were eight floors in the building the defenders had plenty of room in which to retreat higher and higher, making the building's capture costly in the extreme.

	It was now plain that Kastans could and would fight with great tenacity. The conquest of the prison was proving harder than anticipated.

-

	Wardle found an Aluesine officer, suggested, "Dead Gaths are no use to the Gath Army. Better withdraw your men from the attack."

	"But we've got to take this building at whatever cost," protested the other. "Most of four hundred Kastans are in there."

	"Maybe we can get rid of them more cheaply."

	"How?"

	"We can blow them out. With enough stuff stacked inside we can lift them high enough to meet their own fleet. How's the rest of the battle going?"

	"I haven't the remotest notion," admitted the officer.

	Then he rocked forward, clutched Wardle around the neck and almost brought him down with the weight. The walls groaned, the ceilings showered dust, the ground quivered. A long strip of distorted steel buzzed through one window and out the other, hitting nobody. Glass rained from windows above.

	"The armory doors," exclaimed Wardle. "Now we should have plenty of teeth."

	He scooted into the yard, headed for the armory. Halfway there something went taketa-takela and invisible bees buzzed over his head. After that he ran in a sort of leaping zigzag but no more bullets came.

	Near the armory the great steel doors sprawled upon the ground, twisted as if by a giant hand. Prisoners were taking out weapons as fast as they could be snatched, just as he arrived Cheminais and two Stames shoved out a heavy machine-gun mounted on two wheels.

	"Four more of these gadgets in there," informed Cheminais. He narrowed his eyes at the yard, part of which was conspicuously unoccupied. "The gate guard went down like skittles but the relief-guard is holding out. They've locked themselves in the guardhouse and are well armed."

	"Oh, so that's who fired at me just now?"

	"Yes, they've light automatic guns covering half a dozen narrow arcs around the building."

	"But now we smack back at them, houne?" put in a Stame, mournfully happy. "We teach them a lesson, houne?"

	"Any explosive in there?" asked Wardle, jerking a thumb.

	"Only a dozen kegs of that quarrying junk," said Cheminais.

	"That'll do. I'd better find Holden fast. He knows how best to use it."

	So saying, he hastened back, his mind occupied with the potency of a ton or more of alamite. The distant gun opened up immediately he entered its arc. He took a dive, lay still. The gun ceased. Carefully he edged forward. Taketa-taketa. Whoever was behind that gun had good sight and poor patience.

	The bullets came very close. One plucked at his shoulder padding, ripped a slice out of the cloth. Another struck concrete a foot from his nose, ricochetted skyward with a noise like that of a buzz-saw.

	Another pause, during which sweat trickled down his spine. Slowly he raised his head. Taketa-taketa. This was not more than a one-second burst because immediately it was answered by a faster, heavier hammering from the yard. Gamma-gamma-gamma sounded Cheminais and his Stames. The distant gun-post dissolved into chaos as a stream of small explosive shells sprayed all over it.

	That was good marksmanship in the hazy half-light of coming sunrise. Wardle got up and ran. In two minutes he was back with Holden who examined the kegs and pronounced them very bangworthy. Thirty Stames at once dragged the lethal load to the dormitories, lugged it up to the second floor, stacked it in a middle room.

	Not knowing what was taking place the Kastans on the third and higher floors made no attempt to interfere. They sat tight and awaited further attacks from enemies swarming beneath.

	While well-armed Stames and Aluesines kept close watch on the rising stairs, Holden primed the pyramid of kegs, got everything ready.

-

	At that point Wardle appeared with one of the captured gate-guards. The huge Kastan was completely submissive and already had assumed the status of a slave who exists only to obey.

	"You will go up to the next floor," ordered Wardle, "protecting yourself by shouting your identity in your own language. You will tell all those above that they must surrender at once or be blown sky-high."

	Unhesitatingly the Kastan agreed, as a prisoner must. No thought of refusal or trickery entered his mind despite the current bad example of which he'd become a victim. He mounted the stairs, bawling a warning.

	"This is Rifada. Do not shoot—I am Rifada."

	He reached the top, turned out of sight onto the third floor. There was a brief silence while those below strained their ears to listen.

	Then, "Guard-Sergeant Kling, I am ordered to tell you that all must surrender or be blown up."

	"So! And you a prisoner of prisoners, eh?" A pause, followed by, "He comes up here and invites us to share his disgrace. Death is better than that." Another pause, then a short, sharp, "Kill him!"

	A dozen shots blasted. Something made a dull thud on the floor. Aluesines and Stames cast each other the knowing looks of those who'd expected nothing less from a piece of Terran super-optimism.

	Wardle made a gesture of mixed despair and disgust. "That settles it. We can do no more in these circumstances. Let 'em have it."

	Two Aluesines remained at the bottom of the stairs to oppose a possible last-minute rush from above. All the rest hastened out of the building, placed themselves at a safe distance. Holden went into the middle room, stayed there a few seconds, came out like he'd been seared with a red-hot poker.

	Taking their cue from this, the pair of Aluesines abandoned their post, followed him down and out at breakneck pace. They joined the crowd, turned to watch results.

	For a short time the big building stood stark and silent against the growing light of morning. Then its walls bulged. Came a tremendous roar and the whole edifice burst apart. A great vertical column of dirt, dust and vapor arose skyward with darker lumps soaring and falling within it.

	By a freak of chance characteristic of explosions eighteen Kastans survived the blast, bruised and badly shocked but otherwise whole. The dirtiest and most bedraggled of these was Guard-Major Slovits. He crawled out of the mess, stood up, felt himself all over, gazed around with a completely befuddled expression.

	Holden brought him to his senses by tapping him on the chest and announcing, "Henceforth your sole-purpose in life will be to please me. Is that understood?"

	"Yes," agreed Slovits, demonstrating that one man's poison is another man's meat.

	"In no circumstances will you disobey."

	"No," confirmed Slovits, horrified at the thought of outraging a well-established convention.

	"Therefore," finished Holden, pointing across the yard, "you will march these former guards in a smart and military manner to General Partha-ak-Waym and apply to him for immediate enlistment in the army of the Gath Republic."

	Slovits stood staring down at him from his greater height. His heavy body swayed slightly while a peculiar series of emotions chased each other across his broad, leathery face. His lips worked but no words came out. Then suddenly his eyes closed and he slumped without a sound.

	"Holy smoke!" exclaimed Holden, surprised. "The big ape has fainted."

	"What do you expect when a warrior plunges into his living grave and is immediately hauled out by his enemy?" asked Wardle.

-

	The guardhouse fell within half an hour, gave up twelve Kastan dead who'd fought to the last gasp. The prison's conquest was now complete but activity did not lessen in the slightest.

	A blue flag with white star was nailed to the pole above the administration building, formally saluted and informally cheered. Stretcher parties collected the wounded, rushed them to the hospital where the doctors took charge. Other parties sought among the dead for Festerhead and Machimbar, found neither, both having had the good fortune to be absent when the balloon went up.

	A triumphant column one thousand strong roared out in captured trucks and thundered along slave-built jungle roads. Four hundred were armed with light automatic guns, four hundred with machine-pistols, two hundred with hastily-made alamite grenades.

	They reached the next nearest jail in time to take part in the final assault. Again the Kastans had fought with bitter determination born of the belief that the only alternative was a lifetime of damnation. Three hundred and seventy died in their boots. Forty-eight dazed Kastans accepted salvation in the ranks of the growing Gath Army.

	The column sped forth again, now doubled in size and fire-power. It passed Festerhead and Machimbar on its way to the next jail, meeting them sitting pop-eyed in an official car, leaving them dead-eyed in a smoking wreck. The third and other prisons toppled in turn. By the fall of the tenth the column had become an army of which only one in seven carried a modern weapon.

	A surprise assault in full strength upon a garrison town remedied the arms-shortage, provided lavish quantities of ammunition, added seven hundred mentally confused Kastans to the ranks. Here, the Gaths also gained their first heavy artillery in the form of ten mobile batteries of dual-purpose guns.

	A side-swipe in force at an inadequately defended airfield won them four small space-cruisers in fighting trim, also sixty-two jet planes. Onetime painters daubed out the double-arrow insignia, replaced them with a white star. Former pilots, navigators, space-engineers and gunners piled joyfully into the ships, took them up, plastered enemy airfields elsewhere.

	Electricians and telephone engineers cut power cables, tapped lines, listened to unwitting Kastans talking from afar, bollixed them with fake messages, passed constant information to the Gath Field Intelligence Service. Scout-planes fed the headquarters staff with news of enemy movements. Radio technicians monitored Kastan broadcasts with captured equipment, added their quota of valuable details. Swiftly the Gaths had reached the stage of waging war systematically, knowing what they were doing and why they were doing it.

	A small, judiciously estimated quantity of nuisance value had been placed in a suitable environment where it had fermented like yeast in a brewery vat.

	On the ninth day of the revolt a flaming battleship fell through the sky from somewhere where twinklings and vivid flashings had concentrated among the stars. On a hilltop it made a meteorlike crater surrounded by gobs of molten metal. Faintly discernible upon one distorted slab were the tips of two white arrows.

	The same night eleven more ships plunged down white-hot, illuminating the jungle for miles. One was unidentifiable. One carried the sign of a Terran comet. Nine bore paired arrows.

-

	Upon the tenth day Wardle and the others bounced and jolted in a racing truck that was part of a gigantic column pushing forward nearly a thousand miles south of the prison. Their driver was Gath-Major Slovits, the only one aboard big enough to hold the huge steering-wheel and reach the big foot-pedals. Slovits, revelling in unexpected freedom and new-found honor, was by now the Gathiest of the Gaths.

	A mobile radio unit operating by the wayside drew their attention as an Aluesine sergeant, standing near it, waved them down. The sergeant came close, his cat-eyes examining them curiously.

	"You Terrans are wanted at Langasime."

	"That's a day's run rearward," complained Wardle. "The fighting is ahead. What's the idea?"

	"They're calling for you over the air. You're wanted at Langasime as soon as you can get there."

	"Who wants us?"

	"A Terran frigate has landed. They say the enemy fleet has suffered severe loss and that our conquest of Gathin is only a matter of time. Union forces are massing to attack Kasta itself."

	"Hm-m-m! By the looks of it we're being ordered home."

	Wardle showed disappointment, stood coping with a moment of chronic indecision. A truck lumbered past hauling a tank of paralyzing gas and its long-range projector. Three white-starred jetplanes swooped over the advancing column, rocked and swayed into the distance. The horizon spewed smoke and faint noises, the taketa-taketa of light automatics, the gamma-gamma-gamma of heavy machine-guns, the brief, deep whoomps of alamite bombs, large caliber mortars and dual-purpose guns.

	Reluctantly he gave way. "Oh, well, maybe they've something else in mind for us." Then to Slovits, "Take us back good and fast."

-

	At the dilapidated and bomb-cratered Langasime spaceport the frigate's captain came down his gangway to meet them. He was tall, young, dapper, and spoke with an air of weary resignation.

	"At H.Q. they need their heads examined. I've been ordered to pick up the Special Task Force—in a frigate." His attention settled on Casasola. "I suppose you fellows are part of it?"

	Casasola said nothing.

	"We fellows," informed Holden, "are all of it."

	The captain frowned disapproval while he sought around for the gag. Failing to find it, he remarked incredulously, "What, only seven of you?"

	"Yair," said Holden, donating an irritating smirk. "Good, houne?" He turned, made a motion of farewell. "Best of luck, Slobovitch."

	"Slovits," reminded Slovits, with extreme politeness.

The End