"Hmm. Boss, apparently you knew that it would be this rough. Couldn't you have warned me?"

"Would you have been more alert, more resolute, had I filled your mind with vague warnings of unknown dangers? Woman, you made no mistakes."

"The hell I didn't! Uncle Jim met my capsule when he should not have known the time I would arrive; that should have set off every alarm in my head. The instant I laid eyes on him I should have dived back down the hole and taken any capsule anywhere."

"Whereupon it would have become extremely difficult for us to achieve rendezvous, which would have aborted your mission as thoroughly as losing what you carried. My child, if affairs had gone smoothly, Jim would have met you at my behest; you underestimate my intelligence net as well as the effort we put into trying to watch over you. But I did not send Jim to get you because at that moment I was running. Hobbling, to be precise. Hurrying. Trying to escape. I assume that Jim took the ETA message himself-from our man, or that of our antagonists, or possibly from both."

"Boss, if I had known it at the time, I would have fed Jim to his horses. I was fond of him. When the time comes, I want to cancel him myself. He's mine."

"Friday, in our profession it is undesirable to hold grudges."

"I don't hold many but Uncle Jim is special. And there is another case I want to handle myself. But I'll argue with you later. Say, is it true that Uncle Jim used to be a papist priest?"

Boss almost looked surprised. "Where did you hear that nonsense?"

"Around and about. Gossip."

'Human, All Too Human.' Gossip is a vice. Let me settle it. Prufit was a con man. I met him in prison, where he did something for me, important enough that I made a place for him in our organization. My mistake. My inexcusable mistake, as a con man never stops being a con man; he can't. But I suffered from a will to believe, a defect of character that I thought I had rooted out. I was mistaken. Continue, please."

I told Boss how they had grabbed me. "Five of them, I think. Possibly only four."

"Six, I believe. Descriptions."

"None, Boss, I was too busy. Well, one. I had one sharp look at him just as I killed him. About a hundred and seventy-five tall, weight around seventy-five or -six. Age near thirty-five. Blondish, smooth-shaven. Slavic. But he was the only one my eye photographed. Because he held still. Involuntarily. As his neck snapped."

"You never do." "Was the other one you killed blond or brunet?"

'Belsen'? Brunet."

"No, at the farm. Never mind. You killed two and injured three before they piled enough bodies on you to hold you down by sheer weight. A credit to your instructor, let me add. In escaping, we had not been able to thin them down enough to keep them from taking you... but, in my opinion, you won the battle in which we recaptured you by your having earlier taken out so many of their effectives. Even though you were chained up and unconscious at the time, you won the final fracas. Go on, please."

"That about wraps it up, Boss. A gang rape next, followed by interrogation, direct, then under drugs, then under pain."

"I'm sorry about the rape, Friday. The usual bonuses. You will find them enhanced as I judge the circumstances to have been unusually offensive."

"Oh, not that bad. I'm hardly a twittering virgin. I can recall social occasions that were almost as unpleasant. Except one man. I don't know his face but I can identify him. I want him! I want him as badly as I want Uncle Jim. Worse, maybe, as I want to punish him a bit before I let him die."

"I can only repeat what I said earlier. For us, personal grudges are a mistake. They reduce survival probability."

"I'll risk it for this bucko. Boss, I don't hold the rape qua rape against him; they were ordered to rape me under the silly theory that it would soften me up for interrogation. But the scum should bathe and he should have his teeth fixed and he should brush them and use a mouthwash. And somebody must tell him that it is not polite to slap a woman with whom he is copulated. I don't know his face but I know his voice and his odor and his build and his nickname. Rocks or Rocky."

"Jeremy Rockford."

"Huh? You know him? Where is he?"

"I once knew him and I recently had one clear look at him, enough to be sure. Requiescat in pace."

"Really? Oh, hell. I hope he didn't die quietly."

"He did not die quietly. Friday, I have not told you all that I know-"

"-because I wanted your report first. Their assault on the farm succeeded because Jim Prufit had cut all power just before they hit us. This left us nothing but hand weapons for the few who wear arms at the farm, only bare hands for most of us. I ordered evacuation and most of us escaped through a tunnel prepared and concealed when the house was rebuilt. I am sorry and proud to say that three of our best, the three who were armed when we were hit, elected to play Horatius at the bridge. I know that they died as I kept the tunnel open until I could tell by the sounds that it had been entered by the raiders. Then I blasted it.

"It took some hours to round up enough people and to mount our counterattack, especially in arranging for enough authorized power vehicles. While we conceivably could have attacked on foot, we had to have at least one APV as ambulance for you."

"How did you know I was alive?"

"The same way I knew that the escape tunnel had been entered and not by our rear guard. Remote pickups. Friday, everything that was done to you and by you, everything you said and was said to you, was monitored and recorded. I was unable to monitor in person-busy preparing the counterattack-but the essential parts were played for me as time permitted. Let me add that I am proud of you.

"By knowing which pickups recorded what, we knew where they were holding you, the fact that you were cuffed, how many were in the house, where they were, when they settled down, and who stayed awake. By relay to the command APV I knew the situation in the house right to the moment of attack. We hit- They hit, I mean-our people hit. I don't lead attacks hobbling on these two sticks; I wield the baton. Our people hit the house, were inside, the designated four picked you up-one armed only with a bolt cutter- and all were out in three minutes eleven seconds. Then we set fire to it."

"Boss! Your lovely farmhouse?"

"When a ship is sinking, one does not worry about the diningroom linens. We can never use the farm again. Burning the house destroyed many awkward records and many secret and quasi-secret items of equipment. But, most compelling, burning the house gave us a quick cleanup of the parties who had compromised its secrets.

Our cordon was in place before we used incendiaries, then each one was shot as he attempted to come out.

"That was when I saw your acquaintance Jeremy Rockford. He was burned in the leg as he came out the east door. He stumbled back in, changed his mind and tried again to escape, fell and was trapped. From the sounds he made I can assure you that he did not die quietly."

"Ugh. Boss, when I said that I wanted to punish him before I killed him, I didn't mean anything as horrible as burning him to death."

"Had he not behaved like a horse running back into a burning barn, he would have died as the others did... quickly, from laser beam. Shot on sight, for we took no prisoners."

"Not even for interrogation?"

"Not correct doctrine, I so stipulate. But, Friday my dear, you are unaware of the emotional atmosphere. All had heard the tapes, at least of the rape and of your third interrogation, the torture. Our lads and lassies would not have taken prisoners even if I had so ordered. But I did not attempt to. I want you to know that you are held in high esteem by your colleagues. Including the many who have never met you and whom you are unlikely ever to meet."