had to admire the will to destruction that still rode the old man. He may have weakened in his mind but he had never softened. And the Weapon? It was the one secret that Wagner had not been able to learn. "Yes, Sir," Wagner agreed. "If you should ever feel the need to use the Weapon, I ask you to remember that my only wish is to be of aid to my General."

Koski's washed blue eyes grew crafty. "I fully realize that. But I will need no help. You may accept my compliments and withdraw." Wagner muttered a soft oath under his breath as he bowed humbly.

"As you can see, I didn't die," Buckmaster said. The two chairs in the small room were occupied by the men he faced. He sat on a steel-framed bed. "No." Lester Oliver was thoughtful. "I'm wondering why you didn't. Do you have any explanation?"

"Only something that you wouldn't understand, unless it happened to you," Buckmaster answered. "I couldn't explain it."

"Try." Oliver spoke softly, but Buckmaster knew that behind that softness Oliver hid a bulldog tenacity. Carefully, patiently Buckmaster told about the Force, trying to make them sense it as he had.

"You feel then," Cecil Cuff, the other man in the room, said, "that you're in the grip of something over which you have no direct control?"

"Yes."

"Are you certain that it is not the contact Wagner imposed on you?"

"It came before Wagner was present," Buckmaster replied. Cuff turned to Oliver. "I know he believes what he is saying," he said. "But it's obvious that his mind has been tampered with. If we let him live, we'll be taking the risk that the General and Wagner are getting at us, through him."

"That's right," Oliver answered.

"I think he should be killed," Cuff said. Oliver was thoughtful for a long moment. "What do you think, Clifford?" he asked gently. He always called Buckmaster by his first name. Buckmaster breathed deeply. "Naturally I want to live," he answered. "But from the viewpoint of the Underground, I suppose Cuff is right."

"You say that you feel that this Force is a protective one," Oliver said. "Does it seem to you that perhaps we couldn't kill you--that it would prevent us?"

Buckmaster searched for words to express his thoughts. "I feel," he said, "that it won't let me be killed. It seems that I have a 

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