took a sealed bottle firmly by the neck and snapped it against the edge of the table. It shattered and spilled over the floor.
'I get the idea. We case the joint for as long as we can, staying away from the dangerous operations. Then we escape?' He poured an acid over the salt on the floor; it bubbled and gave off thin wisps of vapor.
Lawrence scattered a neutralizing base over the acid. It became a white froth that he flushed down a floor- gutter. 'I see,' he remarked, returning to his work, 'that we've been thinking along somewhat similar lines.'
'I have a machine,' said Train irrelevantly. 'I developed it all by myself—no, I'm forgetting my girl friend, a very competent head for details—and if I get back to Earth and have two weeks to myself, along with reasonable equipment, I guarantee that I'll wipe World Research and all that's rotten in it off the face of the Earth and out of the cosmos, too.'
'Sounds remarkable. What does it do?'
Train told him.
The chemist whistled. 'Quite out of my field,' he said. 'It takes a physicist to dope out those things that really count.'
'Independent Fourteen, they call it,' said Train with a tight-drawn smile. 'And I swear by every god in the firmament that nothing—
nothing—is going to keep me from getting back to Earth, setting up Independent Fourteen, and blowing World Research to hell!'
3
Train was lying half-awake on his cot when the door slammed shut.
'Hiya, Lawrence.' The chemist bent over him. 'Get up, Barney. It's happened.'
Train sat up abruptly. 'How do you know?' he snapped.
'I was just seeing the Oily Bird.' That was the name they had given the infuriating man who greeted them on their arrival. 'He says we've made good in the packaging department and we're going to be promoted. He still doesn't know that we are wise as to what is going on.'
'Promoted, eh? What's that mean?'
'He said we were going into the production end of the concern. That we'd have to handle the stuff without tongs. Be exposed to sunlight.
And, at this distance, that's surely fatal in a short time.'
'I didn't think it would come this quickly,' said Train. 'Then we'll have to dope something out—fast.'
'Fast is the word. How about slugging a guard?'
'Too crude. Much too crude. They must have an elaborate system of passwords and countersigns; otherwise it would have been done successfully long ago. And Lord knows how many times it's failed!'
'Right,' said the chemist. 'We can't slug a guard. But maybe we can bribe one?'
'I doubt it. We know it hasn't succeeded. I suppose they make big money as such things go.'
'Can we put psychological screws on one? Know any little tricks like suggesting hatred against the system he's working for?'
Train wrinkled his brow. 'Yes, but they are good only after a long period of constant suggestion. We have to move at once. Lawrence, can you play sick?'
'As well as you. Why?'
'And do you remember the shape of the eyebrows on the guard we have this week?'
'Have you gone bats?' demanded the chemist, staring at Train angrily.
'This is no time to be playing jokes.'
The scientist raised his hand. 'This isn't a joke, or a game, either. Those eyebrows may mean our salvation.'
Lawrence picked up a pencil and paper and sketched out what he remembered of their guard's face. 'There,' he said, thrusting it under Train's nose.
Train studied the drawing. 'I think this is accurate,' he mused. 'If it is, we may be back on Earth in two weeks.'
The guard knocked on the door, and there was no answer. Suspiciously he pushed it open and entered, half- expecting to be attacked. But he found one of the prisoners in bed with a sallow skin, breathing in shallow gulps.
'Lawrence is sick, I think,' said Train.
'Yeah? Too bad. I'll call the medico.'
'No,' gasped the patient. 'Not yet.'
The guard turned to go. 'I have to call him when anyone is sick. It might start an epidemic, otherwise.'
'Can you wait just a minute?' asked Train. 'I know how to handle him when he gets one of his attacks. It isn't anything contagious. Just mild conjunctivitis of the exegetical peritoneum.'
'That a fact?' asked the guard. 'How do you handle him?'
'Easy enough,' said Train. 'May I borrow your flashlight?'
'Sure!' The guard handed over a slim pencil-torch.
'Thank you.' The scientist balanced the light on the broad back of a chair. 'Won't you sit down?' he asked the guard. 'This will take a few minutes.'
'Sure.' Their warder watched with interest as Train dimmed the lights of the cell and switched on the flashlight so that it cast a tiny spot of radiance on a gleaming water faucet. The guard stared at it, fascinated.
Train's voice sank to a whispering drone. 'Concentrate on the light.
Block out every other thing but the light.'
The guard shifted uneasily. This was a strange way to treat a sick man, and the light was shining right in his eyes. Perhaps he had better call the medico after all. He was half decided to do so, but he felt tired and the chair was comfortable. What was it Train was saying?
'By the time I have counted to twenty, you will be asleep. One…' The guard's eyes grew heavy. 'Concentrate …block out everything but the light …everything but the light …seven …
The spot of light floated before the guard's face, distorting into strange shapes that shifted. He just barely heard Train drone 'twelve' before he began to breathe deeply and hoarsely.
Train switched on the lights and slipped the flashlight into his pocket.
'Perfect specimen, Lawrence,' he exulted. 'You can always tell by the eyebrows.'
'Fascinating,' returned the erstwhile victim to conjunctivitis of the exegetical peritoneum as he climbed out of bed. 'What now?'
Train rolled back the guard's eyelids with a practiced thumb. 'Ask him anything,' he said. 'He'll tell you whatever we want to know.'
Lawrence cleared his throat, bent over the sleeping man. 'When are you leaving for Earth?'
'This afternoon. One hour from now.'
'Do the others know you?'
'They never saw me, but they know my name.'
'What are the passwords on the way to the ship?'
'Front gate, rabies. Second gate, tuberculosis. Field guard, leprosy.
Ship port, cancer.'
'Someone must have had a grim sense of humor,' whispered Lawrence to Train. 'What are your duties on the ship?'
'I have no duties.'
The chemist snapped: 'One of us must take his place.'
'Yes. Which one of us? No, we won't have to decide. I'm going. Aside from such details as the fact that his uniform will fit me, but would look suspiciously baggy on you, I have a chance to do something about this whole rotten system when I get back. You would only be able to commit more murders, or near-murders.'
The chemist's lips whitened. 'You're right,' he whispered. 'When you have the chance, promise me that you'll
