ou to those ships!"

"He's right, you know," Lansing said.

Court stood up and took one step toward the general.

"Alfred!" the warden did not lift his voice, but Court stopped. "General
Knox," Halloran went on in a conversational tone, "you're being a bit of
bully, you know, and in this prison we've all been ... ah, conditioned
against bullies." He looked down at his desk and frowned. "However, I'll
admit that your position requires that I elaborate my reasons for
staying here. Well, then. As I see it, your people, your ... ah,
colonists, can help themselves. Most of _my_ people, the inmates here,
can't. A long time ago, gentlemen, I decided I'd spend my life helping
the one man in our society who seemingly can't help himself, the
so-called criminal. I've always felt that society owes a debt to the
criminal ... instead of the other way around."

He hesitated, grinned apologetically at Captain Court. "I'm sermonizing
again, eh, Alfred? But," he shrugged, "if I must get dramatic about it I
can only say that my life's work ends only with my--death."

"It's quite a rough job, you know," Goldsmid remarked. "This is a
maximum security institution. Too many of the inmates have disappointed
the warden. But he keeps trying and we've learned to follow his
example."

"Our psychiatric bunch have done some mighty interesting things," beamed
Slade, "even with cases that looked absolutely hopeless."

"None of them can be saved now," muttered Lansing.

"That is in the hands of God," Goldsmid replied.

"Well," Halloran said gently, "still going to send those tanks after me,
general?"

"Uh ... no ... I won't interfere with a man doing his duty."

Lansing cleared his throat, looked slowly from the somber-faced
clergyman, to the fidgeting medico, to the burly captain, still staring
impassively at the general, to, finally, the quiet, smiling warden.
"Gentlemen," he said slowly, "it occurs to me that the situation hasn't
actually registered on you. The earth is really doomed, you know. This
dust simply won't tolerate organic life. In some way--we have not had
time to discover how--it's self-multiplying, so, as I said, it spreads.
Right now, not a tenth of this entire continent--from the pole down to
the Panama Canal--is capable of supporting any kind of life as we know
it. And that area is diminishing hourly."

"No way of checking it?" Slade asked. His tone was one of idle
curiosity, nothing else.

"No. It's death, gentlemen