ation under control again, holstered her gun, and turned
back to Rimerley. He had regamed some of his self-pos-
session, and was bieating into the communicator, trying
to raise his staff back at the house.
“That won’t do you any good,” Maddalena said curt-
ly. “I gassed the house and they’ll sleep till morning.
Come onget down from there! ”
Like a badly operated marionette, Rimerley complied,
falling awkwardly and twisting his ankle. He limped
when Maddalena ordered him to move towards his col-
leagues, and made a whimpering complaint about such
treatment.
“If you complain once more,” Maddalena told him
stonily, “I’ll take a leg off you, the way you did to the
poor bastard who provided a graft for Jusdn Kolb. Is
that clear?”
Rimerley gulped enormously, and began to waddle
hastily forward.
“That’s the lot,” Bracy said proudly, indicating the
scattered forms oa the ground. “And I’ve piled their
guns over there.”
“Excellent,” Maddalena said. “I never thought we’d do
it, to be frank. You’ve been quite amazing.” She clapped
him on the shoulder, forgetful for the moment of what
he had )ust been doing, and was first startled, then
amazed, when he put up his hand anxiously to make cer-
tain it was not the end of his usefulness and his turn to
be knocked unconscious.
Rimerley, breathing raggedly, fought to recover his
dignity. He said, “I demand to know by what right
you”
“I told you,” Maddalena snapped. “If you want spe-
cific charges, the main one will probably be murder, and
the subsidiary, interference with a Zarathustra Refugee
Planet.”
Rimerley gave an oily smile. He said, “My govern-
ment contests the legality of the non-interference rule, as
you ought to know. And plenty of planets recognise the
right of euthanasia. If you’re assuming that we commit-
ted murder to obtain the grafts we have employed,
you’re wrong. I can show you a release for each of the
donors, agreeing to euthanasia because of incurable
illness or serious injury.”
“Including the girl over there?” Maddalena countered,
and saw with satisfaction the look of horror that wiped
away the doctor’s smile.
“What now?” Bracy pressed her.
“Well, since they’ve been so kind as to provide the
means,” Maddalena said, “I think we might as well go
directly to see Commandant Langenschmidt. I haven’t
flown a spaceship for several years, but I was taught how
in Corps indoctrination, and they say what the Corps
teaches you can never be forgotten. Want to try space
for a change, Bracy?”
The boy hesitated. Then self-respect overcame his
doubts, and he pat his shoulders back and nodded vigor-
ously.
“Then help me drag this load of carrion aboard, and
we’ll leave.” Maddalena said.
XX
The ship bringing the three-merober board of inquiry
from Earth, which had pat the parsecs behind it at a
speed to make light look like a tired snail, dropped into
its assigned slot at the Cy-clops base. The three board
members emerged: Senior General Lyia Baden, small of
build but large of voice, and two colonelsa staff rank,
indicating that they had not served in the Patrol, but had
spent their entire careers in administration.
“General Baden?” said Dr Anstey Nole, stepping for-
ward to greet them. “My name is Nole, second senior
officer here at present.”
General Baden looked at her surroundings with an icy
blue eye. She said at length, “You’re under ultimatum to
leave this base by tomorrow at latest, aren’t you? Where
are your preparations for departure?”
Indeed, it was obvious to the most casual glance that
the work of the base was proceeding normallyfar from
tearing down the installations, men and robots were at
work on repair and renovation, a fact which had given
the Cyclopean inspectors a bad time recently. It made
them feel peculiarly helpless, for there was nothing
whatever a backward world like Cyclops could do
against the Corps if it decided to dig in its heels.
Major Barly strode forward from where he had been
standing, next to Nole. “I want to register the strongest
possible protest against the defiant behaviour of your
base commandant!” he thundered. “Until yesterday he
was according us full cooperation. Then suddenly he