I felt as though I had been put upon the end of a huge oscillating spring. I said, "The leader? She?" "You'll meet her," he said. "After blastoff you'll meet her. Right now our problem is to slip in among those prisoners without being seen." "Among the _prisoners_?" "Haven't time to explain more. You'll have to trust us. Unless you want to stay here and have the Deacons hunt you till they find you." He was right: wherever I was going, I had to go. I couldn't go back now. Ever. I said, "I trust you. Let's go." Slipping in wasn't really difficult. There were only one or two guards for each group of prisoners, and they were looking for someone to escape, not join their flock. Some of the prisoners were dressed, some naked. Some looked bruised and beaten; some did not. It all depended on whether they had been questioned. They all looked dull-eyed, resigned. They paid remarkably little attention as we moved in among them, and stood there. * * * * * The guards began to call out orders presently and the groups shuffled forward, and then single lines moved up the ramp and into the spaceship. The thin man and his woman were still with me. "They don't bother to count," he whispered, "so we won't be noticed." I wanted to ask him other questions, but we were divided into groups and they weren't in mine. Minutes later I found myself in the vast hull, sitting on one of the tiers that hold the seats vertical when the ship is tail-based for blastoff. It was very dim here and I couldn't readily make out the faces of the people on the same tier with me. A loudspeaker came to life; a deep, impersonal voice. "Fasten your webbings carefully!" I did that and heard the rustling sounds about me as the others did it, too. "Stand by for blastoff!" There was a dead pause, then a sudden low throbbing roar and the feeling of life in the floor plates and the bulkheads. I felt the slightest weight of pressure against the seat. The seat began to tilt slightly. Suddenly a soft voice on my left spoke: "_We're on our way. They can't stop us now, can they?_" It was the same low, provocative woman's voice that I had heard in my dreams! I whirled my head. I could see only the shape of flowing hair, no features. "Who are you?" She laughed. "No wonder you don't recognize me. The natural voice is different than approved standard, isn't it? Listen. Do you remember this?" The head cocked to one side and a crisp, formal voice came out. "Information you desire is in Bank 29." "Lara!" I said. I pushed toward her, but the webbing held me back. "Yes. It's I. And we're together now and we'll have a long, long time to find out about each other. It's ten weeks to Mars." * * * * * I ran my hand over my forehead. "I don't get it. I don't get any of it. Your voice--I mean your real voice, not the standard one--I dreamed about it, and--"