"I was hoping you wouldn't recognize me, Captain Hunter," she said. "What are you doing here--dressed like some dowdy just in from a farm sector?" he asked, his gaze incredulous. "We're all of us a mixture of different personalities," she replied. "I work for an entertainment house, yes. But I also have some of the qualities of your Ann Saymer. Don't take offense, please. Ann and I are both interested in the maladjusted. She wants a quick cure. I'm looking for the cause." "Here?" "Wherever there are people who face an emotional crisis--the men who come to Number thirty-four, or a mob of strikers. I want to know why we react in the way we do, and what makes up the frustration pattern that crowds us across the borderline into insanity." "You sound like a psychiatrist," he said. "I hold a First, Captain Hunter." "And you work in an entertainment house?" "Tell me about yourself, Captain. Have you found Ann yet?" He looked away quickly. "No," he said, his face hardening. "And you still haven't had a chance to use your blaster?" He directed an appraising glance at her. The question might imply a great deal. Did she somehow know what had happened at Mrs. Ames'? Did she know he was a fugitive? A dozen police mercenaries appeared abruptly at the end of the street. Since the police had never been used to break a strike, Hunter guessed that this was Consolidated's answer to Werner von Rausch's new weapon. The mercenaries drew their blasters and ordered the mob to disperse. The automatons turned to face them. And as they turned they fell silent--the cloying, choking silence of the tomb. Like marching puppets, the mob moved toward the police. Clearly Hunter could hear a shrill voice ordering them to halt. Hunter felt a sickening inner horror. How could the mob obey when they heard nothing but the enslaving grid, and responded to neither fear nor reason? Still they moved forward, in a robot death march. Whatever happened, it was a situation Young could turn to his advantage. If the mercenaries killed unarmed workers, it could be turned into superb propaganda. And ultimately, by sheer weight of numbers, the defenseless mob could overwhelm the mercenaries. White fire leaped from the blasters. The first rank fell, but the mob marched blindly across the smoking corpses. The mercenaries fired again. It was slaughter--brutal and pointless--of slaves unaware of their danger, unable to save themselves. Without understanding his own motivation--and without caring--Max Hunter leaped into the sill of the terminal window. There he was in a position to fire over the heads of the mob. The blast from his weapon arrowed into the line of police mercenaries. Three fell in the agony of the flames. The rest, glad for an excuse to stop the slaughter, turned and fled. Like clockwork things, the mob turned back and resumed its precision demonstration in front of the factory.