"I agree with you," said Frank when he and Sadie were rolled snugly in their waterproofs near a smudge. (It held off the humming army of jitbugs which had arrived with darkness.) "Um." She wriggled into a more comfortable position on the sodden ground. "I told the sentries to keep an eye on him. "Say," he continued softly, "on your idea for a war substitute.... Why not break down and explain it to me?" "Haven't explained it to myself yet," she yawned. "That professor who named me Sadie Thompson when we were concentrated once ... because it rains all the time here, you know ... he told me about how, in the Middle Ages, when two armies were too well matched to fight, each would select its best knight to represent it. Now what did he call 'em?" "Champions?" Frank rose on one elbow. "That's it. So the champions would ... joust, was it? And the army whose Champ won would be declared the victor." "Do you think either the U.S. or the B.S. would agree to any such harebrained scheme as that?" "They would if they had to." "But the Big Shots glory in having no sense of honor. Under their crazy code, they'd be bound to doublecross us if they lost." "But they couldn't lose, could they? Not if they've learned how to disintegrate atoms." Her voice sounded far away. "I don't get you. What's the use of our side putting up a champion if he's sure to lose?" "I didn't say our side would lose. Or did I?" She yawned again. "I'm dog-tired and all mixed up. Haven't taken a hike like this since we marched on Venusport. Kiss me goodnight. Beetlebrow says we have to be on our toes in the morning." Frank lay awake a long time, listening to jungle sounds and struggling over her paradox. He dozed off to be jerked awake by a burst of gunfire. It was from the sentries; their quick action alone saved the little party as a horde of wild-eyed, ragged savages poured up the ridge toward them in the dawnlight. Sadie was out of her blankets and yelling orders even as she knuckled the sleep from her eyes. "Take cover," she shouted. "Spread out. 'Ware grenades. Hold your fire." She spoke with the authority of a girl who had grown up as a jungle outlaw. As the others jumped to obey, Frank crawled through the biteweed to see whether their defense circle was complete. He found it so, except where the ridge ended in a steep declivity. "Fire," screamed their self-appointed commander as the gaunt figures of their attackers loomed through the fog. A storm of Tommygun bullets sent the enemy flying, except for a dozen who lay writhing. "They're poor devils of Incors who've been waylaid and robbed by some Big Shot patrol," Sadie explained grimly as the shooting died. "They'll come again; they've either got to make another stake, let themselves be concentrated, or starve." It was at this moment that Beetlebrow went mad. Throwing away his gun, he began running along the edge of the cliff, waving his arms and alternately shouting curses at the enemy and screaming for mercy.