o a petty tyrant like Boggs.

A bearded face peered cautiously through parted willows and James' voice
spoke. "You're Jorden? I suppose by now everybody in the villages knows
where I'm hiding out. I'm the world's prize fool for letting this parade
come past my place. Come in and I'll tell you what I know. If you help
get Boggs it will be worth anything it costs me."

Jorden followed the man through the screening willows to the mouth of
the cave. There the two of them squatted on rocks opposite each other.

"I remember you now," said James. "You set up the electric plant when we
were assembling the pile, didn't you? I thought we'd worked together."

Jorden nodded, hoping James would go on, remembering Adamson's caution
not to push him too hard, but the engineer seemed to have nothing more
to say. He rubbed a hand forcibly against his other arm and looked
beyond the mouth of the cave to the slow moving river.

"This business concerning Boggs' destruction of the plant--how did it
start?" said Jorden finally.

"How does anything of that kind start?" said James. "Boggs came to some
of us and remarked in casual conversation what a shame it would be if
the colony were to duplicate all over again the mistakes that Earth have
made during the past thousands of years. A few of us were sympathetic
with that thought--it would indeed be a shame. Some of the engineers
thought that this was the perfect chance to set up a truly scientific
society. They didn't agree that Boggs was the ideal leader, but he _was_
the leader and the obvious one to work through. They all became
convinced that a rapid industrialization and a highly technological
society built upon the old rusty foundations would be most difficult to
overcome in building a society on truly adequate sociological
principles. You can take it from there."

Yes, he could, Jorden thought. Anybody could take it from there. It was
the oldest lie that men of power and position had ever concocted. Why
had those particular colonists fallen for it?

"What about you?" he asked James. "Were you sucked in by Boggs'
arguments?"

The engineer nodded. "He took all of us. And all along he never intended
that more than a couple would get out alive--by double crossing the
others."

"Why?" said Jorden.

"Why? I've thought a lot about that, living here in this mudhole. You
get to thinking about things like that when you realize there's no going
back, that Boggs would kill me on sight fo