and braced, and that there was no
more pain. Not much, anyway.

"I feel fine," he said.

"Good, good. The doc says you'll be okay." Berg sat down on the edge of
the bunk. "I can't stay here long, but the hell with it. We'll be at the
station soon. You deserve to know some things, such as that you've been
rescued."

"Well, that's obvious," said Lancaster.

"By us. The rebels. The underground. Subversive characters."

"That's obvious too. And thanks--" The word was so ridiculously
inadequate that Lancaster had to laugh.

* * * * *

"I suppose you've guessed most of it already," said Berg. "We needed a
scientist of your caliber for our project. One thing we're desperately
short of is technical personnel, since the only real education in such
lines is to be had on Earth and most graduates find comfortable berths
in the existing society. Like you, for instance. So we played a trick on
you. We used part of our organization--yes, we have a big one, and it's
pretty smart and powerful too--to convince you this was a government job
of top secrecy. More damn things can be done in the name of Security--"
Berg clicked his tongue. "Everybody you saw at the station was more or
less play-acting, of course. The whole thing was set up to fool you. We
might not have gotten away with it if we'd used some other person, more
shrewd about such things, but we'd studied you and knew you for an
amiable, unsuspicious guy, too wrapped up in your own work to go
witch-smelling."

"I guessed that much," admitted Lancaster. "After I'd been in the cells
for awhile. Your way of living and thinking was so different from
anything like--"

"Yeah. I'm sorry as hell about that, Allen. We thought you could just
return to ordinary life, but somehow--through one of those accidents or
malices inevitable in a state where every man spies on his
neighbor--you were hauled in. We knew of it at once--yes, we've even
infiltrated the secret police--and decided to do something about it.
Quite apart from the danger of your betraying what you knew--we could
have eliminated that by quietly murdering you--there was the fact that
we'd gotten you into this and did owe you something. We managed to get
Dr. Pappas transferred to the inquisitory where you were being held. He
drugged you, producing a remarkably corpse-like figure, and smuggled you
out as simply another one who'd died under questioning. I used my
Security papers to get the