"First we shall wipe out most of the population. We only need a small stabilized population to provide for us."

"What about the Redbirds?" Danton said. His voice sounded weak. It was weak. "This is their planet, doesn't—"

"Their bodies are too alien," she said. "They can't be of any benefit to us. Except, of course, they provide conflict for the mongrels."

Danton closed his eyes. There was no more confusion. He knew now where the road led if you stayed on it to its end. It ended here with bodies stacked up in refrigerators. It ended with the cancellation of all human values, except the values of the fifty select—and they were no longer human in any familiar sense.

He felt sick, very sick. It might be embarrassing, he was so sick. He said, "I don't feel very well. Maybe I could rest here for a few minutes?"

She laughed. She stopped laughing, and Danton heard the sound of doors sliding and the approach of softly moving feet. Two Oligarchs—Guards, evidently, for each wore a flash-gun at his side. And between them—

Danton didn't quite believe what he saw, and if what he saw was true, he didn't know whether to be glad or not. Keith and Van Ness. The latter was terribly wounded, his face a red smear, blood soaking his side. And Keith—Keith, Danton had decided, was a dangerous man.

One of the Oligarchs said, "We brought them directly to you, on Weisser's orders. Weisser talked to them, then sent them down here. He said that you would know—"

She raised her hand and the Oligarch guard stopped talking. Danton looked at Keith's rigid, white face. Keith's lips thinned back over his teeth as he grinned at Danton. "Captain," he said. "I guess you beat me to the punch. I see you're already on friendly terms."

Van Ness moaned softly and fell to his knees. He stared sightlessly from his broken face.

Danton said, "I thought you two were gone for good."

"So did we," Keith said. "But the Redbirds dropped us over a tower, down a chute. I don't know why."

Rhone said, "The Redbirds fight for us too. We pay them. For every body they bring to us, they receive pay. A kind of drug."

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