m an encouraging squeeze--they'd got on together pretty damn
fast--and started out. "And instruct them not to pick up anybody, off
asteroids or planets or out of the ether. I don't care if they see their
grandmothers floating outside a spaceport."

The thought of his armada joining him made Pink feel more at ease. No
sense to that, of course, but three ships are better than one, if only
for moral support. "Daley," he said then, "lower the Mutiny Gates."

"You think it's wise?"

"If I didn't, I wouldn't do it," he snapped. It would be the first time
that a mutiny gate had been used in more than forty years. All the large
ships were equipped with them, great plastikoid barriers which operated
from the captain's room, sealing off the officer's sector from the rest
of the ship. They had been made standard equipment in the old days,
before screenings became really effective and the danger of
psychopathic trouble in the crew grew negligible. Now they were of
theoretical use in case of boarding by alien life, or of damage to a
large segment of the hull ... but they had never actually been brought
into play in Pinkham's lifetime. "Drop 'em," he repeated.

Daley pulled open a drawer, tugged at an unused switch, which creaked
protestingly; then the brief alarm clang that heralded the fall of the
forty gates sounded in the distance. "If he's beyond the gates," the
senior lieutenant said heavily, "the crew may be done for."

"No more than if the gates were up," Pink told him impatiently.

"You're projecting," said Daley. "How do we know the nature of the
beast? He may mop 'em up in a fit of pique at being shut out there."

"The chances are he's on our side of the walls," said Bill Calico.
"Nothing out there of much importance to him. The hydroponics farm,
history room, library, and so on."

"We don't know what's important to him," said Daley. "We don't know what
in blazes he wants aboard. We don't know a doggone thing!"

Silver returned. "I heard the mutiny gates go," he said questioningly.

"Are you all armed?" asked Pink. They nodded. "Then let's sweep the
place," he said, glancing from one grim face to another. "Pick up the
other officers as we go, and make a chain of inspection that he can't
bust through. We'll corner him sooner or later. Then we'll see if atomic
pistols will settle his hash." He looked at Circe. "You'd better stay
here," he said.

"I agree," said Randy Kinkare suddenly. "And you'd best lock her
in-