"You are traitors to yourselves by rejecting this life-span for a few brief years of glory as a soldier, then a slow decay for ten years till you are in a grave at thirty or forty.

"Your motto ought to be, 'live fast, fight hard, die young and have a radiation-rotted corpse'.

"And yet you condemn a man because he tries to seek a few comforts from an uncomfortable, implacable universe."

They didn't get it. They never get it, he thought ruefully. They continued in their cat and mouse game until they realized the mouse refused to be terrified, then they let him go.

During the next few weeks, someone started the rumor that the Traitor was actually a native of the People's Republic who had been trained and then planted in the United Empire's TA to do this job for Intelligence. The soldiers quickly believed it and almost came to respect the Traitor.

From the way that the Intelligence officers freely talked about classified information with him in his weekly visits, Aron was aware that they would probably kill him once his usefulness was over. He was devising ways, though, to get around that at the last minute.

From this knowledge that had been blatantly tossed in front of him, he knew how strategic Kligor was in the stalemated war between the empires.

The People's Republic now had a fair-sized striking force based there, so that when an all-out offensive, which was scheduled in a few weeks, started, this hidden force could attack United Republic's squadrons from the rear and be doubly effective because of surprise.

So the weeks trotted by, the soldiers' camp expanding daily as the[Pg 23] Traitor let the supply ships through the barrier. There are moods in war just as in people. This was a crucial point, the People's Republic had gained a slight edge by its gain on Kligor. So the usual pitch of anticipation was infused with the higher excitement of a sure victory.

[Pg 23]

The days were slipping furtively away as the Kligor garrison gathered itself together, crouched and got ready to spring into blind, violent action on the big day.

The laughter of the soldiers was tinged with nervous hysteria, but when they thought of that grim array of defense satellites, with its all-seeing eyes, its 

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