nothing against Mallory. He
had never met the man but he rather liked him. Mallory was just a man
fighting for a principle, the same as Chambers was doing.

He was sorry that it had been necessary to put Mallory in prison. If the
man only had listened to reason, had accepted the proposals that had
been made, or just had dropped out of sight until the Jovian elections
were over ... or at least had moderated his charges. But when he had
attempted to reveal the offers, which he termed bribery, something had
to be done.

Ludwig Stutsman had handled that part of it. Brilliant fellow, this
Stutsman, but as mean a human as ever walked on two legs. A man utterly
without mercy, entirely without principle. A man who would stoop to any
depth. But a useful man, a good one to have around to do the dirty work.
And dirty work sometimes was necessary.

Chambers picked up the spacegram again and studied it. Stutsman, out on
Callisto now, had sent it. He was doing a good job out there. The Jovian
confederacy, less than one Earth year under Interplanetary domination,
was still half rebellious, still angry at being forced to turn over its
government to the hand-picked officials of Chambers' company. An iron
heel was needed and Stutsman was that iron heel.

* * * * *

So the people on the Jovian satellites wanted the release of John Moore
Mallory. "They're getting ugly," the spacegram said. It had been a
mistake to confine Mallory to Callisto. Stutsman should have thought of
that.

Chambers would instruct Stutsman to remove Mallory from the Callisto
prison, place him on one of the prison ships. Give instructions to the
captain to make things comfortable for him. When this furor had blown
over, after things had quieted down in the Jovian confederacy, it might
be possible to release Mallory. After all, the man wasn't really guilty
of any crime. It was a shame that he should be imprisoned when
racketeering rats like Scorio went scot-free right here in New York.

A buzzer purred softly and Chambers reached out to press a stud.

"Dr. Craven to see you," his secretary said. "You asked to see him, Mr.
Chambers."

"All right," said Chambers. "Send him right in."

He clicked the stud again, picked up his pen, wrote out a spacegram to
Stutsman, and signed it.

Dr. Herbert Craven stood just inside the door, his black suit wrinkled
and untidy, his sparse sandy hair standing on end.

"You sent for me," he s