The thing that hit MacCauley on the back of the neck first didn't quite knock him out. He was stunned, but in the half-second before the next blow jolted him into complete darkness, he heard Kittrell conclude, most casually: "You see, I am the guy who sells the narcophene."

A shiver rippled along Mac's spine, and another one. That was his first waking impression. He was cold, frozen stiff, he decided next, when his limbs failed to react to the stimuli of his neural commands. As the fog cleared away from his aching head he discovered that his hands were tightly bound behind him, hobbles on his feet to keep him from walking far or fast.

Not that he could have gone anywhere much. He was in a bare little metal room, lying on the grating that supplanted decks in most modern spacers. Not much point in getting up, he realized, and merely hitched himself into a more comfortable position in a corner, moving as well as he could under the unaccustomed drag of full Earth gravity.

He was in the lock-room, the chamber before an airlock. He felt vaguely unhappy. Whatever was coming, he was sure he wouldn't like it.

Behind him a heavy door eased open. Boots thumped hollowly on the grids and a familiar voice sounded, echoing from the bare metal walls. "Hello, MacCauley. How's the head?"

"Go to hell," Mac suggested. He craned his neck and stared full into Kittrell's face. There was a curious mixture of emotions there; faint sorrow, an unpleasant sort of crooked leer, and an air of boredom—each was visible. Kittrell shrugged.

"I guess you know what you're up against?"

"Sure." MacCauley tried to shrug, too, but succeeded only in tearing a patch of skin from his wrists where the wire bonds were tightest. "You're going to shove me out."

"I'm afraid so. Believe me, I'd rather not. I think you're a good chap; once I wanted to be like you—loyal to the service. They stuck me out here and made a desk clerk of me, when I would have given my arm to do some real work. I got a good salary; there was prestige enough whenever I could get back to Boston and show off. It was a good job, in a way. But there was nothing to do. Then I intercepted a load of narcophene. Like everybody else, I thought I could beat it. I didn't. I tried it and couldn't stop."

He stopped abruptly and scanned MacCauley's face through narrowed eyes. "You see how it is?" he questioned.

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