Too surprised to disobey, the guard threw the televisor switch, and in a moment Strom's stern face appeared on the screen. He comprehended the situation immediately. "Do as she says," he ordered brusquely. "Stoddard is coming to take care of that man of hers that Gore beat up." A few minutes later she was tearfully assisting the ship's doctor to put the man with the dislocated shoulders on a stretcher. "Your husband?" asked Stoddard, who resembled a starved gray rat. "My brother," she exclaimed simply. "Want to take care of him?" And at her eager assent, he said, "Can't afford to let him die. Your family got money?" "Yes, yes! They will pay anything--anything--to get him back safely." The doctor grinned with satisfaction. * * * * * Memory returned to Quirl with the realization that he was lying on a metal bunk in an outside stateroom, where he could see the orderly procession of the stars through the floor ports as the ship rotated. His body was racked with pain, and his head seemed enormous. His sensation, he discovered, was due to a thick swathing of bandages. As he stirred something moved in an adjoining bunk, and Dr. Stoddard's peaked face came into view. "How do you feel?" he asked professionally. "Rotten!" "We'll fix that." He left, returning a few minutes later with a portable apparatus somewhat resembling its progenitor, the diathermy generator. He disposed a number of insulated loops about Quirl's body and head, connecting them through flexible cables to his machine. As a gentle humming began, Quirl was conscious of an agreeable warmth, of a quickening all over his body. A great lassitude followed, and he slept. When he awoke again Captain Strom was standing beside him. He had taken off his coat, and his powerful body filled the blouse he was wearing. He had evidently just come off duty, for he still had on his blue trousers, with the stripes of gold braid down the sides. "It may interest you, Mr. Finner, that I have selected you as one of the chosen," he remarked casually. "One of the chosen what?" "The chosen race. You didn't take me for an out-and-out damned pirate, did you?" "Excuse me if I seem dumb!" Quirl hoisted himself on his elbow. "Yes, I figure you're a pirate. What else?" * * * * * Strom's stern face relaxed in a smile. It was a strange smile, inscrutably melancholy. It revealed, beneath the hardness of a warrior, something else; the idealism of a poet. When he spoke again it was with a strange gentleness: "To attain one's end, one must make use of many means, and sometimes to disguise one's purpose. For instance, it is perfectly proper for an officer of the I.F.P. to disguise himself like a son of the idle rich in order to lay the infamous 'Scourge' by the heels, isn't it?"