gh the floor ports as the ship rotated.
His body was racked with pain, and his head seemed enormous. His
sensation, he discovered, was due to a thick swathing of bandages.

As he stirred something moved in an adjoining bunk, and Dr. Stoddard's
peaked face came into view.

"How do you feel?" he asked professionally.

"Rotten!"

"We'll fix that." He left, returning a few minutes later with a
portable apparatus somewhat resembling its progenitor, the diathermy
generator. He disposed a number of insulated loops about Quirl's body
and head, connecting them through flexible cables to his machine. As a
gentle humming began, Quirl was conscious of an agreeable warmth, of a
quickening all over his body. A great lassitude followed, and he
slept.

When he awoke again Captain Strom was standing beside him. He had
taken off his coat, and his powerful body filled the blouse he was
wearing. He had evidently just come off duty, for he still had on his
blue trousers, with the stripes of gold braid down the sides.

"It may interest you, Mr. Finner, that I have selected you as one of
the chosen," he remarked casually.

"One of the chosen what?"

"The chosen race. You didn't take me for an out-and-out damned pirate,
did you?"

"Excuse me if I seem dumb!" Quirl hoisted himself on his elbow. "Yes,
I figure you're a pirate. What else?"

* * * * *

Strom's stern face relaxed in a smile. It was a strange smile,
inscrutably melancholy. It revealed, beneath the hardness of a
warrior, something else; the idealism of a poet. When he spoke again
it was with a strange gentleness:

"To attain one's end, one must make use of many means, and sometimes
to disguise one's purpose. For instance, it is perfectly proper for an
officer of the I.F.P. to disguise himself like a son of the idle rich
in order to lay the infamous 'Scourge' by the heels, isn't it?"

Quirl felt himself redden. And a cold fear seemed to overwhelm him. He
realized that Strom was a zealot, and he knew he would not hesitate to
kill. This prompt penetration of his disguise was something he had not
bargained for.

"What makes you think," he asked shortly, "that I'm an I.F.P. man?"

"The fight you gave Gore and his men. Do you expect me to think that a
coupon clipper could have done that? I know the way of--"

He checked himself. Quirl said:

"My people have money. I don't know what you mean about--"

"Oh, yes, you do," Strom interrupte