Realization that Gravinol, hurriedly released upon the world without proper testing, was incompatible with any civilized system and at the same time incurably habit forming. Gravinol outlawed by the reviving New Governments. The few hundred survivors of the Special Corps, Nick among them, roaming the face of Earth in a desperate, frustrating search for the few grams still in existence, ready to commit any crime to ease their torment, clinging with fanatical, drug-inculcated loyalty to a Cause that had died with the War's end, looking endlessly for a new Cause to which to fasten their drug-inflamed energies, shunned and avoided and feared and hated by those persons not in the grip of Gravinol. The whispered rumor that had led him to that office, miraculously untouched amid the ruins of Chicago. Listening to the young man with the cold eyes--he had never learned his name--as he told of the Jones Drive and the double Cause of protecting Earth and making Mars a fit new world for human colonization. "And this," the man had said, casually rolling a tiny red pellet of Gravinol across the broad desk into Nick's clutching fingers. "All you want." Central Camp, the Martian Exploitation Company's base on the red desert, and indoctrination under the thought machines. Plenty of Gravinol, to be had for the asking, and the companionship of other old members of the Corps. Flashing out in a wonderfully responsive fighter rocket to strafe and destroy a skulking Martie or two. Months without unhappiness, without a single emotional response not conditioned by the Gravinol and the thought machines. Then one night the glow of a spaceship landing far to the East, and Colonel Hammer's orders. "That ship is not authorized by Headquarters. Bomb it! And you, Tinker, photograph the results. The Man wants proof." Silvery hull against red sand. Small derrick drilling for the water Nick knew they would never find, for even the Exploiters had failed. A few tents. Men and women and half a dozen children waving excited greetings. Ship and tents obscured as the bombs detonated. And when the dust cleared--nothing. Liquidation of the potential independent colony had made no impression at the time, but now in this tunnel far beneath the surface Nick clenched his fists and bit his lip as he thought of the callous brutality of it. * * * * * Then, weeks afterward, that card game quarrel with Jake Alaimo. Patrol the next day, and rockets failing far out over the bleak and deadly desert. Fuel gauges showing full but tanks empty, radio dead, and Alaimo's note on the mechanic's service card. Starting the impossibly long walk back to base. Eyes tortured by the harsh sunlight. Thirst. Beginnings of the gnawing craving for Gravinol. Memories of the tortures he had endured brought Nick wide awake in the tunnel, all his muscles tightening momentarily as though to begin the twitching spasm typical of denied Gravinol addiction.