"I won't lie to you," he said desperately, pleadingly. "You haven't a chance. There's a photoelectric alarm system outside the compartment, and Jim Saddler is sitting just inside the door. He has a gun trained on her. His orders are to shoot her dead if anyone so much as attempts to get inside that door." "Meaning me?" "It means you, Lieutenant. I'm not lying; I swear it. You won't stand a chance. Henley will be coming back in a few hours now. You'd better get out while you're still in one piece." Corriston was tempted to hurl Stone back against the wall and shout at him: "It doesn't matter whether I go out of here in one piece or dead on a stretcher. She's the only thing I care about." But he caught himself just in time. Stone thought in the most primitive imaginable terms. You couldn't go to a Stone Age man and say: "My own skin doesn't mean a goddam thing to me. I'm in love. If she dies I die. Can't you understand that? If she dies, my life will be over." He said instead: "All right. I guess it means I've got to get help." "You'll never get help," Stone said, summoning from some defiant depths within himself a little courage. "The colony is eighty-seven miles from here. You couldn't cross the desert on foot. No one could cross it on foot, not when the temperature drops at night to fifty below. But you'd better not stay. He'd better head for Ramsey's citadel. That's your only chance. It's only twenty miles from here." _Let him think that_, a voice within Corriston warned. Let him think that I'll head for the citadel. Otherwise he may attempt to get word to Ramsey somehow. I can tie him up and leave him in a state of shock, but if he thinks I'm heading for the colony, even a state of shock may not stop him. Saddler may come down here looking for him. Once he's freed, if he thinks I'm heading for the Colony.... Corriston said: "Damn you, Stone, I ought to kill you. I ought to put a bullet through your heart right now. I don't know why I can't. It's a weakness in me." "I'd kill _you_, Corriston, if _I_ had the chance. But I'm glad you have that kind of a weakness." Corriston stared at him incredulously. "You're certainly outspoken. You were pleading for your life a moment ago--going soft, as you'd put it. Now you're talking realistically, analyzing your own motivations and mine." "I'm not quite as dumb as you think me, Corriston." "All right. Let's say you're not dumb. Few people are, when it comes to a matter of life or death. That's beside the point right now. I've got to tie you up. Where can I find some rope?" "It would be much simpler to lock me in a vacant compartment." "All right. Then I'll lock you in one of the compartments. You can pick your own compartment. I'd advise you not to waste my time. Pick your own compartment and I'll slide the bolt fast on the outside."