offered to take us in if we would lay down our weapons and promise to come peacefully; if we did not, they said they had a sort of gas which would make us all lose consciousness."

"So you agreed?"

"Certainly. You see, they explained about the Rightmen, too. The people we were fighting are not the city's army; they were a sort of club taking orders from Dr. Alfreed. A historian told me that it was what you call a dictatorship. They had seized control of the city (although the council had escaped and continued to work opposition, preparing the pursuit machines, etc.) and were beating down the people, not allowing any freedom of speech, so when they saw that we were losing, the people came out and attacked the Rightmen from behind. At the same time the pursuit machines came out, because, of course, no one except the council knew that there was a weapon which could be used against Alfreed's army.

"It was really the citizens who won because there were not enough of the pursuit machines to beat the Rightmen; all they could do was to create confusion in the Rightmen ranks, and work demoralization by carrying off fighters."

Stevens was silent for a moment, then: "What happened to the Rightmen--those who weren't killed?"

"They were Regulated, Alfreed among them, and all came out sane again."

"And Isral--the Hebers?"

"Doing fine; they're going into arts and crafts, something which the Chief Historian says has been a lost function with us. We needed them badly."

He scratched his head. "Somehow," he said, "I feel different. I'm not the old, frightened Clark Stevens that I once was; and I'm not the man I was when I first ran away with you. I want to live here, in the city. Yet I'm still not satisfied with it. It has to be changed."

He broke off as the Neuro-specialist came in. "Hello," he said, "what's up?"

"'Lo, Stevens," replied the man. "Feeling all right?"

"Yes."

"We want you on the council. There was a faction that wanted to regulate you again, but most of us agree that we need men of your kind here, so long as they're not extremists. You seem to have levelled off to just the right point to make you valuable."

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