people roared past. I had a flash glimpse of them. They sat there staring straight ahead, wearing the efficient expressions of good workers. State corpses.
Suddenly we emerged into the dark. It was the dark of night, but after the tunnels it was practically sunrise. The air was clean--no, it was not actually as clean as the conditioned air below. It was more than clean. It was alive.
We were on the edge of a great concrete paved area. About a hundred yards ahead, a massive, shining, fat needle rose into the air, and squatted there against the stars. It was a spaceship in its launching cradle. There were low buildings near it, a few floodlights, and people standing around. It took a moment to realize that the men walking up and down and along the groups of people, the men with rifles on their shoulders, were guards.
"Luck, now, that's all we need. A little luck," said the thin man beside me. It was the first time I had heard his voice. It was a low voice; he spoke with emotion. It was not approved standard.The woman moved beside him and put her hand upon his arm. 
I said, "May I talk now?" 
He turned to me, smiling. The smile had something of that sadness I had first noticed when he sat a prisoner in the jetcopter. "You want an explanation, don't you? Of course you do. But I'm afraid I can't tell you very much, except that we were sent to get you." 
"Sent? By whom? How did you have a key-box? And--" 
He laughed. "Wait, one question at a time. I was a force screen technician before--before we were arrested. Cells are the same everywhere. I know how to short the screens out from the inside; it's troublesome, but it can be done. That's how we escaped the first time. Then they discovered we were gone, chased us, and you gave us our second chance. We came here to the rendezvous. There were six here, including our elected leader. When we told the leader what had happened, she arranged for us to return, find you, and help you escape. It wasn't any problem to lift a key-box from the rack where they're usually kept." 

I felt as though I had been put upon the end of a huge oscillating spring. I said, "The leader? She?" 
"You'll meet her," he said. "After blastoff you'll meet her. Right now our problem is to slip in among those prisoners without being seen." 
"Among the prisoners?" 
"Haven't time to explain more. You'll have to trust us. Unless you want to stay here and have the Deacons hunt you till they find you." 
He was right: wherever I was going, I had to go. I couldn't go back now. Ever. I said, "I trust you. Let's go." 

Slipping in wasn't really difficult. There were only one or two guards for each group of prisoners, and they were looking for someone to 

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