They were back at the temporary base of the disks, sitting on the grass in the shade of the great ships, the sun just going down behind them. Brave's slug had been extracted and the wound bandaged with ointments that eased the pain. Bill Thihling, who had been knocked cold early in the fight, was sucking on a lozenge that was lessening his headache by the minute. Alan had not been shot and the beating his head had taken did not worry him, for pain was forever a stranger. He sat with Unquote asleep in his lap and Win's hand held tight in his. "I don't want to live four hundred years," he said. "I want to die in the same years that Brave and my friends go. I don't want to be invulnerable; I want to stick myself with a needle and yell Ouch. I don't want to move like a hopped-up panther, and know what people are thinking, and send brainstorms out to sea from my little skull. I want to be me again." His words were light and half-whimsical, but his thoughts were black. "Same here, baby," said the girl. She put up a hand to adjust her amethyst halter and his eyes followed it; she laughed. "At least your baser instincts are still intact, thank God." Rob Pope said, "There's a lot they have to explain to us yet. We seem to have heard the final chapter of a thousand-page book. They haven't even said who they are, or which system they come from, or what Mac's gang did that they were exiled for." "And by the way," said Win indignantly, "no one's told me yet why they attacked Project Star on the ground instead of bombing it. Give." "Yes, love. They attacked it that way because they didn't want to damage any of the experimental stuff and the disks. They lost four disks in space, coming here, and they're overcrowded, besides having Mac's crew to take home for trial. They need disks. And they're interested in seeing what advances we may have made on fuel and instruments, advances that might give them ideas. All quite logical." "Sure, sure. Everybody knew but Winnie." "Between their numbing rays and our preliminary work, we managed to save nearly all the normal humans on the colony grounds, and about seventy per cent of the robots. There are aliens there now, guarding them and the disks and the whole project." The leader came over to them and squatted on the grass, radiating intelligence and power. "There's quite a man," said Rob in spite of himself. "He is that. I wonder how such advanced people happened to evolve such barbaric ornaments and clothing?" Win said. * * * * *