“Do with me what you will, master.” Her eyes were lowered when she said it. For the first time in my life I was ashamed of being a male chauvinist pig. “It will be better someday soon, Kaeru, I promise you that. And if I ever get out of this with a whole skin I’ll send you a relief parcel. Some dresses, lipstick, and a textbook on fem lib. Now—is there a storeroom here?”

She pointed it out and I kissed her on the forehead. She immediately started to take her clothes off and was surprised when I stopped her. I could readily imagine what romantic lovers the gray men were! One more crime to answer for. Kaeru made no protests at all when I ushered her into the storeroom and locked it from the outside. She would be discovered soon enough when breakfast was late. But all I needed was a few minutes’ headstart.

After leaving I carried the skis until I came to an icy stretch where my prints did not show. Only then did I put them on and head off in the opposite direction, muddling my trail again when I crossed other ski tracks. There was a good deal more of this sort of thing before I found myself back at the spaceport and, once more, cutting my way through the fence. I could hear sounds of excitement, sirens going and engines starting up which seemed to indicate that my earlier visit had been discovered at last. And about time too; I had to stifle a yawn. And wasn’t the sky beginning to get a bit lighter? The hour had come to retire. I resealed the fence and slogged on.

With very little effort I reached the armory unseen. The man I had left in the doorway was gone, as well as everyone else from the vicinity. The lock yielded to my attentions and I breezed through and sealed it behind me. Well done, Jim, you tricky devil. With leaden feet I toured the interior, finally finding a locked room of fragmentation grenades that should be untouched for awhile. In and down behind them, hidden from the world, secure and gone to ground, I yielded at once to the lure of sleep.

It was wonderful. I felt that I could have slept forever. Except something was disturbing me. I swam back up to consciousness and saw that it was daylight. Was that what had woken me?

No, it was a key turning in the lock, the door creaking open.

I had only myself to blame. I had forgotten the plodding searchers in the school. These people could not be tricked by any kind of ruse. As soon as they knew I was still alive they simply started a search of every building in the city. The game was up.

I was refreshed by the long sleep, my bloodstream was filled with rich fish protein—and I was very angry at myself for not making a better attempt at hiding out. But, like the rest of us, I would rather be angry at someone else rather than admit the fault was mine, so I instantly transferred my temper to the hapless man who came through the door, waiting until he came close, then springing upon him like a jungle animal. Then tripping over the skis which I had forgotten about and falling in a tumble at his feet. Not that this made much difference to the outcome since these people had no idea at all about infighting. It was the old twist and crunch once again. After which I shouldered the skis, stepped over the unconscious body, and peeked out of the door. More of them were searching the building, on all sides of me, as I plodded toward the exit. One of them glanced up and I actually did three paces more before he reacted.

“He is there, trying to escape,” he said in a dull monotone.

“Doing it too!” I shouted and rushed through the door, right over the man coming in. Then it was just a matter of stepping into the skis and zipping away.

Of course this did no good at all, other than put off the inevitable for a few more minutes. The fence had been repaired, the entrances were guarded—and my tool kit was back in the armory. As I rushed around, wondering what to do next, I heard the car engines starting up. Grab one of them? Rush the gate. Then what? One man against an entire world wasn’t going to do me much good on this planet. Maybe I could find another hiding place in the city.

Why? I couldn’t escape these people. Why put off the inevitable? I stopped to think about this, then remembered what they could do with the axion feed and I started up again. Maybe Hanasu was right and suicide was the only answer. But I rejected this out of hand; I’m just not the suicide type, as I keep telling myself.

All of this kept me occupied. Rushing about the spaceport with the pursuit hotting up behind me, having a good suffer over my approaching fate, racking my depressed mind for a way out. With my attention wandering like this I wasn’t aware of the sound of the rocket until it was right overhead. Like everyone else on the field I stopped and looked up and gaped.

Out of the low cloud it dropped, riding its flame to the ground, a small scout ship.

With the joined rings of the League upon its flank.

“It worked!” I shrieked and went straight up in the air. I landed on the move and made wow-wow sounds with my hand over my mouth as I streaked for the landing pad. The spacer was still bouncing on its landing shocks when I came rocketing up. Needless to say no one followed me since the locals were not as enthusiastic about this arrival as I was. When the hatch ground open I stood below it.

“Welcome to Kekkonshiki,” I said to the man who emerged, squinting in the reflected glare. “Claim this planet for the League, oh conqueror.”

“I don’t know anything about that,” he said. A young man with an awful lot of hair and beard, wearing a soiled and patched shipsuit. “I got a message to pick up one James Bolivar diGriz.”

“You are looking at him.”

“So are the locals. Only they are coming this way with a lot of guns. Get aboard.”

“Not until I make it plain to these types just what has happened.”

I was happy to see a familiar face in front of the pack. Kome, the commander and captain of the ship who had brought me here. “Drop the gun,” I told him. He raised it instead.

“You will come with me. Both of you.”

I saw red. These people were so dense it sickened me. What they had done, the untold number dead because of their infernal plans, sickened me even more.

“Don’t shoot, I beg of you!” I cried, hands in the air, stumbling toward him. Kicking up hard on his wrist so the gun went flying, I caught it, grabbed his arm, twisted him around and ground the gun into the side of his neck as hard as I could.

“Listen to me, you ice-cold idiots!” I shouted. “It’s all over, finished, through. You have lost. You will cause no more trouble in the galaxy. Your only strength was secrecy, so you could work away like roaches inside the wall. But that’s over now. Don’t you see the insignia on this ship? It’s a League ship. They know about you now. Know who you are and where you are. Justice has arrived in the shape of this handsome pilot who brings you his message of wrath and who announces that he has just conquered your planet.”

“Have I?” the pilot gasped.

“Shut up, you dumbhead, and do your job.”

“My job was to get you.”

“You’ve been promoted. Take their guns.”

There was a little edge of desperation in my voice because they were raising their guns. Knowing their attitudes I knew they would calmly shoot Kome in order to get me. I gave his arm an extra twist and pressed the muzzle of the gun deeper into his flesh.

“Come on, Kome, tell them to put their weapons away and surrender. If one shot is fired I’ll see that you are all tortured to death with hot pokers.”

Kome thought and thought in his plodding Kekkonshiki way. Then made his mind up.

“The presence of this ship might be an accident.”

“No accident,” the pilot said. “I’ll show you the message I received. It went out with a general alarm ordering all ships in the area to this planet. We’ve been looking for you people for some time. I’ll get the message.”