brother to bury. So discussions are out, for now. Guys, will you bring Nick's body to my cottage? Come on, Allie...."

ert was trying very hard to slip away unobtrusively when Lauren grinned mockingly. "Hold on, Kraskow," he snapped. "You're tangled up in this matter, somehow. I've learned that you've already broken a minor law by landing a ship quietly out in the deserts of Titan without declaring its presence; a ship that can be assumed reasonably to be freighted with lethal materials. As a dangerous individual, you can be put under an arrest of restraint. Legal technicalities can be disregarded in a raw colonization project where people are apt to show hysteria, and where something like military law must be enforced for general protection. The say-so of an old and honorable firm like S. C. S. that you are a menace, can, I am sure, be accepted. Patrolmen, take him!"

The cops were puzzled. They offered no immediate objection as Bert, leading his wife, tried to pass them. But Lauren got in Bert's way to prevent him from slipping into the glowering crowd.

Against a man in space-armor, fists weren't very effective; still Bert had the satisfaction of giving Lauren a mighty shove that sent him sprawling. A terrible fury was behind it. The desperation of a last chance. Here was where he had to become completely outlaw.

Alice and he threaded their way through the crowd where the cops could use neither their blasters nor their paralyzers, in spite of Lauren's frantic urging to "Get them!"

Once in the clear, Bert ran with his wife. There was no question of destination. They came to a metal shed. Inside it, beside the small spaceboat, they found Lawler who had anticipated where Bert would go.

The two men spoke to each other with their helmet radios shut off to avoid eaves-dropping. They clasped hands so that the sound-waves of their voices would have a channel over which to pass, in the absence of a sufficiently dense atmosphere.

"All of a sudden I'm a little worried, Bert," Lawler growled. "About the Big Pill. Maybe Lauren is half right about its being so dangerous. After all it has never been tested on a large scale before. And there are two hundred people here on Titan. Well, you know what's got to be done now. When you get to the Prometheus, tell Doc Kramer that I'm squeezing my thumbs...."

Lawler sounded almost plaintive at the end.

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