there were forty-five men and women. These were mainly scientists and soldiers who had incurred the wrath of the Government of the Thirty Suns, though there were some, like Leader Deve Jennet of the Security Police, who carried on a double existence on Atmion IV, living both above in the Green Fortress and in the tunnels....

Of the more than three thousand Greens stationed on the prison planet, some fifty knew of the Group, and of the fifty, perhaps ten had access to the secret quarters. These Greens, at great personal risk, supplied the scientists and workers of the Group with the materials needed for their medical and physical researches.

A falsified report of Aram Jerrold's death under the disintegrators was sent to Terminus under the personal cachet of Leader Deve Jennet of the Security Police; so for the first time in many weeks Aram had a semblance of peace.

Mikal's plan was for the Group to divide into two units. One, the larger of the two, would go—at the proper time—to Kaidor V, there to establish contact with the Provincial Governor and try by any means to dissuade him from his plan to defy the Thirty Suns Government. There were several among the Group who felt that such an approach to Santane would succeed where harsher methods might well fail in the face of the Thirtieth Decant's hidden power. It was Mikal's plan to lead this delegation himself in a starship now being fitted in the central pit of the tunnel maze.

But Kant Mikal did not delude himself that Santane could be won by arguments. Another expedition to the Kaidor Sun would be dispatched at the same time. A small two-man destroyer that had been rendered—Mikal claimed—"undetectable," would leave the Atmion system with the larger vessel and land on Kaidor III, a planet uninhabited save for a few bands of degenerated experimental subjects dumped there by Santane's biological ecologists. Mikal took care to point out that Kaidor III had two large land-masses, and the landing by the two members of the Group selected for that duty would be made on the land-mass unoccupied by the unfortunate subhumans.

This expedition would remain on Kaidor III to await word from the first as to the success or failure of the Group's plan. Failing to hear from them, or hearing of failure, the small ship would proceed to Kaidor V and try to wrest the secret of the virus weapon from Santane. Plainly enough, the second expedition into the Thirtieth Decant would be a last, spasmodic attempt to save something from the ruins of galactic war. That phrase stayed with Jerrold as he listened to Kant Mikal. To save 

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