"Your claim to ignorance will be determined at a formal hearing," retorted Elfor sternly. "We have given you the benefit of every doubt and treated you as honored deevs. I regret that this makes it necessary that all of you be placed under arrest. Your meal will be served to you in your quarters." As soon as Elfor had gone, leaving armed guards outside their door, John tuned in the starship on his pocket transmitter. "I would have advised against Phil's action, in view of our lack of understanding of the situation," he reported to Commander Wallace. "But I confess I wouldn't have anticipated that the result would be so extreme. "I can't fathom their reactions, Tom. In a crazy sort of way, I suppose they fit in with all the other contradictions of their social set-up. Have you had any luck with the ship's calculator?" "Not enough data," answered Tom. "Maybe this new stuff will help, and you might scrape for everything else you can transmit. I'd hate to try a rescue operation, because that might force us to head back for Deneb III. But if they don't decide to blast the ship in the next hour or so, there's a chance we can pull out of this trap at our end." John did not ask for details, for he knew their conversation probably was monitored. * * * * * The four of them sat up half the night poring over the books in their room. They gleaned nothing except from the "history" Phil had been reading the night before. Unfortunately, it was not a general history, but the flowery story of a high military family. The sort of references they found were, "after the Jovian invaders had been driven from Earth" and "Second Sarge Vesix participated in the bombardment that destroyed the Jovian tyrants." No details. What did emerge from their study was a picture of the rise of a military aristocracy on the ashes of an earlier civilization which had been ground to pieces under the heels of alien rulers. There was good news from the starship at dawn. "We're orbiting," said Commander Wallace with quiet pride. "Shortly after I talked with you last night, they called on us to surrender or be blasted. I asked time for a conference of officers and promised to fire a rocket from the nose if we decided to surrender. "I fired the rocket all right, but it was an instantaneous smoke screen rocket. I still don't know whether their guns are manned or robot-controlled, but I gambled that their firing was keyed to the sight of the ship blasting off instead of to vibration. We were half a mile up before they could swing into action, and we didn't get a scratch." A rescue mission with one of the scout rockets was too risky against the strong forces of the Earthmen. Tom mentioned that fast planes had followed them into the stratosphere. But one thing was done for the imprisoned four. Soon after breakfast, they were taken under guard to a Spartan courtroom, presided over by Third Sarge Elfor.