un
as he passed them. Two of them had their blowguns ready, but didn't
use them. By the time he had turned the next corner he was soaked
with nervous perspiration.

Ahead was the rubble of the destroyed building. Grounded next to it
was the tapered form of a spacer's pinnace. Two men had come from
the open lock and were standing at the edge of the burnt area.

Brion's boots grated loudly on the broken wreckage. The men turned
quickly towards him, guns raised. Both of them carried ion rifles.
They relaxed when they saw his offworld clothes.

"Bloody damned savages!" one of them growled. He was a heavy-planet
man, a squashed-down column of muscle and gristle, whose head barely
reached Brion's chest. A pushed-back cap had the crossed slide-rule
symbol of ship's computer man.

"Can't blame them, I guess," the second man said. He wore purser's
insignia. His features were different, but with the same compacted
body the two men were as physically alike as twins. Probably from
the same home planet. "They're gonna get their whole world blown out
from under them at midnight. Looks as if the poor slob in the
streets finally realized what is happening. Hope we're in jump-space
by then. I saw Estrada's World get it, and I don't want to see that
again, not twice in one lifetime!"

The computer man was looking closely at Brion, head tilted sideways
to see his face. "You need transportation offworld?" he asked.
"We're the last ship at the port, and we're going to boil out of
here as soon as the rest of our cargo is aboard. We'll give you
a lift if you need it."

Only by a tremendous effort at control did Brion conceal the
destroying sorrow that overwhelmed him when he looked at that
shattered wasteland, the graveyard of so many. "No," he said.
"That won't be necessary. I'm in touch with the blockading fleet
and they'll pick me up before midnight."

"You from Nyjord?" the purser growled.

"No," Brion said, still only half aware of the men. "But there is
trouble with my own ship." He realized that they were looking
intently at him, that he owed them some kind of explanation.
"I thought I could find a way to stop the war. Now ... I'm not so
sure." He hadn't intended to be so frank with the spacemen, but the
words had been uppermost in his thoughts and had simply slipped out.

The computer man started to say something, but his shipmate speared
him in the side with his elbow. "We blast soon--and I don't like the
way these Disan