was all. Jorgenson ground his teeth.

"Go ahead," said Ganti grimly, "but it may be even worse than you think."

He scrambled over the twisted stone of the island. He came back, carrying something.

"It isn't worse," he said. "It's only as bad. They did drop food and water for both of us. I wasn't sure they would."

His calmness sobered Jorgenson. As a business man, he was moved to make his situation clear. He told Ganti of the Grand Panjandrum's move to take over the Rim Stars trading post, which was bad business. He told of his own reaction, which was not a business-like one at all. Then he said dourly:

"But he's still wrong. No rational being is supposed ever to see me face to face. But you do."

"But I'm crazy," said Ganti calmly. "I tried to kill the governor who'd taken my wife. So he said I was crazy and that made it true. So I wasn't put in a chained group of laborers. Somebody might have seen me and thought about it. But, sent here, it's worse for me and I'm probably forgotten by now."

He was calm about it. Only a Thrid would have been so calm. But they've had at least hundreds of generations in which to get used to injustice. He accepted it. But Jorgenson frowned.

"You've got brains, Ganti. What's the chance of escape?"

"None," said Ganti unemotionally. "You'd better get out of the sun. It'll burn you badly. Come along."

He led the way over the bare, scorching rocky surface. He turned past a small pinnacle. There was shadow. Jorgenson crawled into it, and found himself in a cave. It was not a natural one. It had been hacked out, morsel by morsel. It was cool inside. It was astonishingly roomy.

"How'd this happen?" demanded Jorgenson the business man.

"This is a prison," Ganti explained matter-of-factly. "They let me down here and dropped food and water for a week. They went away. I found there'd been another prisoner here before me. His skeleton was in this cave. I reasoned it out. There must have been others before him. When there is a prisoner here, every so often a copter drops food and water. When the prisoner doesn't pick it up, they stop coming. When, presently, they have another prisoner they drop him off, like me, and he finds the skeleton of the previous prisoner, like 

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