e bank robber and murderer
pitched headlong to his knees, got up slowly with a snarl. But when
the guard gestured again with his rifle, Musto broke into a shambling
run.

Bennington waited until the first of the brothers stood panting at the
gate, then called, "Pietro Musto."

One example had been enough. Pietro took off on the double. In five
minutes the last man had vanished into The Cage.

"You get these, too, sir." Corporal Forester, with a bundle of papers.

"Right. And thanks for staying, corporal. By the way, isn't there
something I sign?"

The trooper produced a form and a pen. Bennington signed and they
saluted each other. The corporal grinned, then his expression sobered.
"That's a real bunch there, sir."

"We're conditioning them immediately, corporal."

"Good idea, sir. The sooner, the better!"

With another salute, the corporal turned to his car and Bennington
started toward The Cage.

* * * * *

Inside The Cage, Bennington went into the corridor that led behind the
mirrors. He wanted to watch the weapons-check and the conditioning; he
found Thornberry waiting for him.

Bennington looked through the mirrors at the men standing as he and
his party had stood yesterday. Room One of The Cage was marked off
into numbered squares. Each man stood on a number, separated from his
brother cons by about ten square feet. They knew they were being
watched, although the men behind the mirrors were invisible to the
prisoners. They stirred restlessly, standing first on one foot, then
on the other, looking uneasily in all directions and seeing nothing
but their own reflections.

"Dalton is on Ten," Thornberry said.

Bennington looked and saw an exceedingly average-looking man. Wouldn't
notice him in a crowd, the general thought and realized that he had
learned one reason for Dalton's success.

"Start the random sequence with him," he said. The system was set up
so that no prisoner knew when he would be summoned.

"I told them to do that," Thornberry said.

"Number Ten", the loud-speaker boomed.

The general moved down the corridor until he was looking into the
hallway between Room One and Room Two. Until yesterday, the prisoners
had simply walked down the corridor while detectors checked them for
the presence of metals. They had then been held at the end of the
hallway until they had stripped themselves of everything that had
registered on the screens.

Today was diffe