Sometime that night Click-Click departed, but Len got back with the replacement in time for the morning edition. Afterwards he showed Scat a big ugly splotch on the tail of the truck where squirt gun corrosive was eating in. "Tried to stop me on the way back just outside Bronsco," he explained as he swabbed on the decontamination fluid. "Had a barricade up, but I gunned my jets and managed to jump it." He went on swabbing. "You know," he said reflectively, "the only good sign I've noticed in this burg so far is that the kids aren't bothering us so much. Maybe it's because we're running _Space Pals_ and _In the Days of the Airplane_. Those're a lot better than the crummy comics Donnolan was feeding them." Scat laughed mirthlessly. "And maybe it's just because they've stepped back to give their parents a chance." Pessimism wasn't usually Scat's forte, but he'd just reached the mental conclusion that it would be three days before the regional court would weaken and give Kemmerdygn--and the Mystic X--what amounted to carte blanche to handle the _Newsbeam_ situation any way they wanted to. Actually, his guess was a day short. But that was no satisfaction; they were miserable days, all four of them. Days of feeling that there was no use beaming the news, because no one would watch it anyway. A steady stream of cancelled subscriptions--sets coming back for refund. Complaints. Threats from various sources. Attacks on their Martians. Nuisances, like putting stench gas in the ventilators while they were beaming an edition. No word from Click-Click, though Scat drove one of the Martians past Bugtown to try to pick up something on the grapevine. Fruitless conferences with the officers of the _Free Martian_ and members of the Martian Lobby--they were moving heaven and earth to keep the regional court in line, but it showed signs of wavering. Most of all, the feeling that a wall was being built around the _Newsbeam_, shutting it off from the rest of the world. You couldn't see that wall, but everywhere in Bronsco you could touch it. * * * * * Late afternoon the fourth day, while they were getting out the evening edition, the wall was completed. Beam power went. Len tried to flash the repair offices. The talk-see was dead. "Looks like this is it," he told Scat. Scat nodded. "Now look here. Len ..." he began. A half hour later he was still trying to persuade Len to take the boys in the truck and make a run for it, when the spokesman of the Young Freeworkers stumbled into the office. "Ran the slidewalks to warn you, Mr. Scatterday," he panted. "Mystic X. They're planning to get you tonight. Everybody's whispering. There's a lot of cars in the air, and they got big guards on all the trafficways--some of 'em are blocked off." "What'd I tell you?" crowed Len. "We couldn't have got out anyway."