ea how bad things have gotten. Over on the east coast, the
outlaws are looting whole towns. About four months ago, they sacked
Waterville; burned the whole town and killed close to a hundred
people. That was Blackie Perales' gang."

"Who is this Blackie Perales? I heard the name mentioned in connection
with the _Harriet Barne_."

"Blackie Perales is anybody the Planetary Government can't catch,
which means practically any outlaw," Fred Karski said.

"No, Fred; there is a Blackie Perales," Tom Brangwyn said. "He used to
be a planter, down in the south. The banks foreclosed on him when he
couldn't pay his notes, and he turned outlaw. That's the way it's
going, all around. Every time a planter loses his plantation or a
farmer loses his farm, or a mechanic loses his job, he turns outlaw.
Take Tramptown, here. We used to plant nothing but melons. Then, when
the sale for wine and brandy dropped, the melon-planters began cutting
their melon crops and raising produce, instead of buying it from up
north, and turning land into pasture for cattle. The people we used to
buy foodstuffs from couldn't sell all they raised, and that threw a
lot of farmhands out of work. So they got the idea there was work
here, and they came flocking in, and when they couldn't get jobs, they
just stayed in Tramptown, stealing anything they could. We don't even
try to police Tramptown any more; we just see to it they don't come up
here."

"Well, where do these outlaws and pirates who are looting whole towns
come from?"

"Down in the Badlands, mostly. None of them have been bothering us,
since we organized the Home Guard. They tried to, a couple of times,
at first. There may have been a few survivors; they spread it around
that Gordon Valley wasn't any outlaws' health resort."

"Why don't you join us, Conn?" Fred Karski asked. "All our old gang
belong."

"I'd like to, but I'm afraid I'm going to be kind of busy."

Brangwyn nodded. "Yes. You will be, at that," he agreed.

"So I hear," Fred Karski said. "Do you really know where it is,
Conn?"

"Well, no." He went into the routine about Merlin being still
classified triple-top secret. "But we'll find it. It may take time,
but we will."

They talked for a while. He asked more questions about the Home Guard.
His father, it seemed, had donated all the equipment. They had a
hundred and seventy men on the active list, but they had a reserve of
over eight hundred, and combat vehicles and weapons on