strength and elasticity which
nevertheless lets the rep rays through like a sieve. Our reports
indicate that the Eries' rockets bounced off harmlessly. Most of the
party was wiped out as the dis rays went into action on them.

"This is going to mean real business for all of the gangs before long.
The Big Bosses have just held a national ultrophone council. It was
decided that America must organize on a national basis. The first move
is to develop sectional organization by Zones. I have been made
Superboss of the Mid-Atlantic Zone.

"We're in for it now. The Hans are sure to launch reprisal expeditions.
If we're to save the race we must keep them away from our camps and
plants. I'm thinking of developing a permanent field force, along the
lines of the regular armies of the 20th Century you told me about. Its
business will be twofold: to carry the warfare as much as possible to
the Hans, and to serve as a decoy, to beep their attention from our
plants. I'm going to need your help in this.

"The other thing I wanted to talk to you about is this: Amazing and
impossible as it seems, there is a group, or perhaps an entire gang,
somewhere among us, that is betraying us to the Hans. It may be the Bad
Bloods, or it may be one of those gangs who live near one of the Han
cities. You know, a hundred and fifteen or twenty years ago there were
certain of these people's ancestors who actually degraded themselves by
mating with the Hans, sometimes even serving them as slaves, in the days
before they brought all their service machinery to perfection.

"There is such a gang, called the Nagras, up near Bah-flo, and another
in Mid-Jersey that men call the Pineys. But I hardly suspect the Pineys.
There is little intelligence among them. They wouldn't have the
information to give the Hans, nor would they be capable of imparting it.
They're absolute savages."

"Just what evidence is there that anybody has been clearing information
to the Hans?" I asked.

"Well," he replied, "first of all there was that raid upon us. That
first Han ship knew the location of our plants exactly. You remember it
floated directly into position above the valley and began a systematic
beaming. Then, the Hans quite obviously have learned that we are picking
up their electrophone waves, for they've gone back to their old, but
extremely accurate, system of directional control. But we've been
getting them for the past week by installing automatic re-broadcast
un