there. "We will give you every courtesy as captured officers: your pay until the end of the war, suitable quarters, servants, good food, access to entertainment and a right to look after your less fortunate enlisted captives." There was no end to the statement. It hung there, waiting for an additional qualification. And then the intelligence officer looked at them quickly, falsely, and said, "Of course, that is contingent upon your willingness to give us certain information."

Flight Officer Morrison licked overly dry lips. He was young. He had heard many stories about the treatment, even the torture, the Saturnians gave their prisoners. And he knew that as a staff officer the Saturnians would know his inadvertent possession of the battle plan so all-important to this campaign. Morrison flicked a scared glance at his captain and then tried to assume a blustering attitude.

Captain de Wolf spoke calmly--a little surprised at himself that he could be so calm in the knowledge that as aide to General Balantine he knew far more than was good to know.

"I am afraid," said the captain quietly, "that we know nothing of any use to you."

The intelligence officer smiled and read the papers again. "On the contrary, my dear captain, I think you know a great deal. It was not clever of you to wear that staff aiguillette on a reconnaissance patrol. It was not clever of you to suppose that merely because we had never succeeded in forcing down a G-434 such as yours that it could not be done. And it is not at all clever of you to suppose that we have no knowledge of a pending attack, a very broad attack. We have that knowledge. We must know more." His smile was ingratiating. "And you, naturally, will tell us."

"You go to hell!" said Flight Officer Morrison, hysteria lurking behind his eyes.

"Now, now, do not be so hasty, gentlemen," said the intelligence officer. "Sit down and smoke a cigarette with me and settle this thing." 

Neither officer made a move toward the indicated chairs. Through Morrison's mind coursed the crude atrocity stories which had been circulated among the troops of Earth, stories which concerned Earth soldiers lashed to ant hills and honey injected into their wounds, stories which dealt with a courier skinned alive, square inch by square inch, stories about a man staked out, eyelids cut away, to be let go mad in the blaze of Mercurian noon.

Captain de Wolf was detached in a 

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