"Sure we'll be missed," Troy said. "But when? We were to stay here eight years ... don't remember that either, eh? The Hammerheads will have all the time they need to be set for whoever comes looking for us eventually." "But would they know that?" Troy said bitterly, "They know everything about Earth that our top brass scientists of the Cassa Expedition were able to tell them. Pearson and Andrews--those names mean anything? They were the Expedition Chiefs when we were captured. One of the first things the Hammerheads did was to have the science staff and other department heads look on while they tortured those two men to death. As a result, they've had all the cooperation they could ask for--more than any decent human being would think of giving them--from our present leadership, the senior scientists Dr. Chris Dexter and Dr. Victor Clingman. They're a couple of lousy traitors, Jerry, and I'm not sure they're even capable of realizing it. Clingman's in charge here at the ground base, and he acts as if he doesn't see anything wrong in helping the Hammerheads." "Helping the...." Vacancy showed for a moment in the pilot's expression; he frowned uncertainly. * * * * * "Try to stay awake, Jerry! There're just a few other things you should try to get nailed down in your memory this time. The Hammerheads are water animals. They can waddle around on land as long as they keep themselves moist, but they don't like it. They've got a religion based on a universal struggle between water and land. Cassa One's nothing but hot desert and rock and big salt beds, so it's no good to them. And the other two planets in the system have no oxygen to speak of. "Now here's the thing that's hard to swallow. There's a huge lumped-up asteroid swarm in the system. The _Atlas_ stopped for a few days on the way in to look around in it. Dexter and Clingman, after we'd been captured, volunteered the information to the Hammerheads that a lot of that stuff was solid H_{2}O and that if they wanted Cassa One fixed up the way they'd like it--wet--the _Atlas_ could ferry enough asteroid ice over here in billion-ton loads to turn most of the surface of the planet into a sea. "You understand it wasn't the Hammerheads who had the idea. They don't have anything resembling the ship power and equipment to handle such a job; it hadn't even occurred to them that it could be possible. But you can bet they bought it when it was handed to them. It will give them a base a third of the way between their own system and Sol. That's what's been going on since we landed and were grabbed off ... almost three years ago now. "And these last weeks there've been, for the first time since we got here, a few clouds in the sky. It means the boys on the _Atlas_ have as many of those mountains of ice riding on orbit as are needed, and they've started shoving them down into the atmosphere to break up and melt. So we ... Jerry, wake up!"