The albino smiled. "You'd have laughed at us, even as you're probably laughing to yourself now. But in this case we have something concrete to offer. Is it a bargain?" "Sure," Ker-jon said wearily. "We need you now. It's a bargain." 3 The rescue proved so incredibly simple that Ker-jon almost couldn't believe his senses. With his two uniformed companions he made his way down the length of the Ark and deep within its bowels, almost to where the unknown engines which propelled them through space thundered and roared and pounded within their casings. Here in a deserted storeroom the prisoners were kept. And Ker-jon's uniformed companions walked right in, just like that, unquestioned by the guards who stood watch in the corridor. The fight was brief. Unleashed, the prisoners swarmed all over their guards, killing them quite expertly, and quite ruthlessly. No time for an alarm, and the engines drowned all sounds of combat. Towards the end, Ker-jon had to turn away. What the mutants did to their captors wasn't pretty. But in a sense he couldn't blame them--what was the old expression about the shoe being on the other foot? Flam-harol stormed out into the corridor, his face a bloody mask. But he smiled grimly. "This I like! No plans, no preparations--and they don't expect us! We'll have the Ark in half an hour...." Behind him Cluny-ann stumbled out, one of her eyes blackened, her jaw swollen. She stopped short and stared foolishly when she saw Ker-jon. "Then--then you didn't desert us? Some even thought you'd betrayed us!" "And I once was betrothed to a beautiful girl," Ker-jon said, laughing. "You should see yourself now--" She pecked at his lips with a brief kiss, came back for more, snuggling in close, but Flam-harol's voice roared at them. "The longer we stay here, the less chance we'll have. Are you two coming?" In a wave, the prisoners surged forward, pounding up the corridor. No order, no discipline--but Ker-jon knew they didn't need it. What they had was enough: superiority in numbers, surprise.... It seemed hardly a moment later, and they swarmed all over the door to the Mutant-maker's quarters. Oddly, it crossed Ker-jon's mind that they didn't even know the man's name. He ruled in anonymity, with his title, with the fear that a night-raid could bring, dragging a man and his wife to the Chamber of Change, assuring the next generation that they too would have their mutants, in ever increasing numbers, for sport, for ridicule. Ker-jon never learned how the door was forced, but suddenly it stood ajar. Through it streamed the mutants. Ker-jon found himself in a wild melee. Needle-guns _zipped_; men fell. But always others surged forward, and the defenders' ranks thinned.