cements to
get these brutes under control. I'm not going in there with them, and I
can't examine them from out here."

"Oh, we can hold them all right. Paralysis gas and shackles will keep
them quiet. There's no need to bother the troopers. We can handle this
by ourselves."

Kennon shrugged. "It's your baby. You should know what you're doing."

"I do," Douglas said confidently. "Wait here until I get the gas
capsules and the equipment." He turned and walked back to the entrance
to the cell block. At the iris he turned. "Be careful," he said.

"Don't worry, I will." Kennon looked at George through the bars and the
humanoid glared back, his eyes bright with hatred. Kennon felt the
short hairs prickle along the back of his neck. George roused a primal
emotion--an elemental dislike that was deeper than reason--an antagonism
intensely physical, almost overpowering--a purely adrenal response that
had no business in the make-up of a civilized human.

He had thought the Lani had a number of human traits until he had
encountered George. But if George was a typical male--then the Lani were
alien. He flexed his muscles and stared coldly into the burning blue
eyes behind the bars. There would be considerable satisfaction in
beating this monstrosity to a quivering pulp. Millennia of human
pre-eminence--of belief that nothing, no matter how big or muscular,
should fail to recognize that a man's person was inviolate--fed the
fuel of his anger. The most ferocious beasts on ten thousand worlds
had learned this lesson. And yet this animal had laid hands on him
with intent to kill. A cold corner of his mind kept telling him that he
wasn't behaving rationally, but he disregarded it. George was a walking
need for a lesson in manners.

"Don't get the idea that I'm afraid of you--you overmuscled oaf," Kennon
snapped. "I can handle you or anyone like you. And if you put your hands
on me again I'll beat you within an inch of your worthless life."

The Lani snarled. "Let me out and I kill you. But you are like all men.
You use gun and iron--not fair fight."

Douglas returned with a gas capsule and a set of shackles. "All right,"
he said. "We're ready for him." He handed Kennon the shackles and a key
to the cell door--and drew his Burkholtz.

"See," the Lani growled. "It is as I say. Men are cowards."

"You know gun?" Douglas asked as he pointed the muzzle of the Burkholtz
at the Lani.

"I know," George growled. "Gun kill."

"It do