She changed course.

At last, as if having her drive finally in operation gave her something of purposefulness, the slim space-ship ceased to look frenzied or frowsy or bemused, and swam through space with a serene competence, like something very much alive and knowing exactly what she was about.

She came to rest upon the almost but not quite airless bulk of Alphin II some thirty hours after her escape from Alphin III. Kim was desperately hungry. But for the lesser gravity of the smaller inner planet, which was responsible for its thinned-out atmosphere, he might have staggered as he walked. Certainly a normal space-suit would have been a heavy burden for a man who had starved for days. Dona, also, looked pale and worn-out when she took from him the things he brought back through the airlock.

They put the great masses of spongy, woody stuff in the synthesizer. It was organic matter. Some of it, perhaps, could have been consumed as food in its original state. But the synthesizer received it, and hummed and buzzed quietly to itself, and presently the man and woman ate. The synthesizer was not the equivalent of those magnificently complex food-machines which in public dining-halls provide almost every dish the gourmets have ever invented from raw materials. But it did make a palatable meal from the tasteless vegetation of the small planet.

Kim said quietly, when they had finished eating, "Now we'll find out for certain what Burt intends to do about us." He grimaced. "He's dangerously intelligent. He underestimated me before. He may consider us dead, or he may overestimate us. I think he'll play it safe. I would, in his place."

"What does that mean?" Dona asked wistfully. "We will be able to go to some other planet, won't we, Kim? As if we'd gone in the matter-transmitter in a perfectly normal fashion? Simply to take up residence on another world?"

Kim shook his head. "I'm beginning to doubt it," he said slowly. "The discovery that with a bit of hafnium a man can change his psychographic pattern is high explosive. If the Disciplinary Circuit can't pick him out as an individual, any man can defy any government which depends on the Circuit. Which means that no government is safe. I've got to remove you for the sake of the government everywhere in the Galaxy."

"But they can't touch us here," said Dona. "We're safe now."

Kim shook his head.

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