'That was what she was playing for,' Takahira said. 'And with our Fleet gone we could have done nothing to hold them.' 'I may be ass enough to walk into a ground-circuit,' said Arnott, 'but I don't dismiss my Fleet till I'm reasonably sure that trouble is over. They're in position still, and I intend to keep 'em there till the Serviles are shipped out of the district. That last little crowd meant murder, my friends.' 'Nerves! All nerves!' said Pirolo. 'You cannot argue with agoraphobia.' 'And it is not as if they had seen much dead--or _is_ it?' said Takahira. 'In all my ninety years I have never seen Death.' Dragomiroff spoke as one who would excuse himself. 'Perhaps that was why--last night--' Then it came out as we sat over breakfast, that, with the exception of Arnott and Pirolo, none of us had ever seen a corpse, or knew in what manner the spirit passes. 'We're a nice lot to flap about governing the Planet,' De Forest laughed. 'I confess, now it's all over, that my main fear was I mightn't be able to pull it off without losing a life.' 'I thought of that too,' said Arnott; 'but there's no death reported, and I've inquired everywhere. What are we supposed to do with our passengers? I've fed 'em.' 'We're between two switches,' De Forest drawled. 'If we drop them in any place that isn't under the Board the natives will make their presence an excuse for cutting out, same as Illinois did, and forcing the Board to take over. If we drop them in any place under the Board's control they'll be killed as soon as our backs are turned.' 'If you say so,' said Pirolo thoughtfully, 'I can guarantee that they will become extinct in process of time, quite happily. What is their birth-rate now?' 'Go down and ask 'em,' said De Forest. 'I think they might become nervous and tear me to bits,' the philosopher of Foggia replied. 'Not really? Well?' 'Open the bilge-doors,' said Takahira with a downward jerk of the thumb. 'Scarcely--after all the trouble we've taken to save 'em,' said De Forest. 'Try London,' Arnott suggested. 'You could turn Satan himself loose there, and they'd only ask him to dinner.' 'Good man! You've given me an idea. Vincent! Oh, Vincent!' He threw the General Communicator open so that we could all hear, and in a few minutes the chart-room filled with the rich, fruity voice of Leopold Vincent, who has purveyed all London her choicest amusements for the last thirty years. We answered with expectant grins, as though we were actually in the stalls of, say, the Combination on a first night. 'We've picked up something in your line,' De Forest began.