There was noise like teeth clicking together and then the wavering laugh burst out again as the apes turned to chase him up the aisle. Dan slid the transceiver into a slit-open carton and whirled as the leaders rushed toward him. The short sword flashed out and back in rapid thrusts, and abruptly Dan was on top of the first pile of cartons. He recovered the weighted club, glanced down at the apes turning to rush up the aisles, and then suddenly he was with them, slamming the last few of them over the heads with the weighted club. He thrust, stabbed, and smashed, now in one place, now another, always striking the gibbering horde where they were fewest and most off-balance. After a long, hideous interval, there came a silence. Dan could see that there were four heaps of dead or unconscious apes, the only live ones were a few clinging to overhead beams with their eyes shut. Dan recovered his transceivers and made his way to one of the few windows in the room. This was about seven feet from the floor, heavily barred, with its glass panes broken out. Dan pulled himself up and looked out at a walk and a high wall a few feet away. He cut the sleeve of his shirt into strips and knotted the strips together with a transceiver tied onto either end, so that one transceiver hung on the outside and the other on the inside. Then Dan was outside, in an underground part of the planet where no one was supposed to be without an official permit. The air seemed as fresh as outdoors, while overhead there was the appearance of the sky on a heavily overcast day. There was light enough to see by, but it was apparently dimmed to provide an artificial night. Dan saw no one, and said mentally, "Kielgaard?" Kielgaard's voice had a hoarse sound. "Are you out of that place?" "I'm out of it--thank heaven." "Amen. But listen, things have taken a nasty turn." "What's happened?" "We've questioned that prisoner. The outfit behind this trouble is Trans-Space. But they don't have the control center. Instead, they've got the headquarters of the election committee that controls the referendum. Trans-Space is representing itself as the government of an interstellar league of planets. They have everything set up to falsify the vote tomorrow." Dan frowned. "What of it? I can still plant the mataform transceivers and we can bring men down from above." "Yes, but Trans-Space has a mataform terminal set up in the terminal election headquarters. It hooks into the local system and connects with an outpost in the jungle on the surface. Trans-Space has been building up to this day for over three years. The election headquarters is manned like a fortress. It's in immediate touch with the outpost on the surface where they've got an army of reinforcements."