He looked at her quietly then shrugged, and marched back to his place in the line. He was unmindful of the pain in his wrenched arm as he moved along with the rest up the slanted walk to the oval door of the space ship. At the top he turned, and his voice rose above the murmur of the crowd. "I'll come back, Maureen," he said, and blew her a kiss from his fingertips. Then he stepped into the darkness, following those others before him. In the gloom, someone said: "Always the gallant one, eh, Sean? You know damn well that you'll never see Earth again. No one who ever left on these slave ships has ever come back." "I think I recognize Michael O'Hara, the village pessimist," Sean replied and there was almost a lightness in his voice. They moved deeper into the bowels of the ship, aware of the curious scraping sound the Krak guards made as they walked with them. * * * * * They were all quiet, these men, women and children whom the Kraks had carelessly chosen, as they marched into the huge dark room that was to be their home for the journey to Karrar. The scraping noise moved through the room, then to the door of the hole. The portal shut with the dull sound of heavy metal. The scraping noise grew fainter, then it was gone. Not until then did the humans give vent to their emotions. The sound of despair was hesitant at first--in a far corner a child gasped, coughed and then sobbed. It was the signal--and the mingled sounds of hysterical laughter, weeping, groaning were ragged knives twisting in Sean McKenna's heart. A rending cacophony of lost hope. "Shut up," he shouted hoarsely. "This is no time for weeping and wailing; this is the time to think, to plan." For a moment the awful symphony subsided; then someone said wearily: "Against the Kraks? What did planning ever do against them? They are invulnerable. We used atomic power, guns, knives, bow and arrows, even our fists against them. And they crushed us like rats in a corner." The cacophony resumed, and Sean's shouting voice could not stop it now--he could not even hear his own voice. A hand touched his arm gently: "Easy, Sean," Michael O'Hara whispered in his ear. "They are right. If we couldn't beat them as free men, how can we even think of it as slaves?" "The fools," Sean said savagely. "No matter how weak they are, they can keep fighting, keep probing for a chink in their armor." "No, Sean, for fifteen years we fought, seeking that chink, and failed to find it. Deep down in your heart you know the Kraks cannot be beaten. Physically, they are to us as we are to new-born babes--no weapon of man can touch them, and did you ever hear of a Krak dying of disease? "No, we met a better adversary. Mother of Erin, Sean, we deserve to be slaves, we haven't the accoutrements to take on the Universe Champion." "There's nothing anywhere that hasn't a weakness, Mike. I aim to find the weakness."