"A nothing?" Nasty Nef's voice demanded. "What sort of talk is that, Lieutenant? If I've been properly interpreting the past five minutes' transmissions, we've got an Axenite officer stranded in the middle of a Stinker village. This, Mister, is not a nothing. Call out the Guard. Prepare to join me in a Stinkerville shakedown. Those Gooks got to learn they can't play fast-and-easy with Axenite troopers." "Done and done, sir!" Hartford snapped. He toggled the phone to get Felix back. "Felix, fall the boys out beside the Syphon. We've got the Old Man hitting bug-dirt with us, so look sharp." "The colonel's going out with us?" Felix asked. "Yes. There must be more to this situation than meets the company-grade eye," Hartford said. "Diaper-up our darlings and stand by in the Hot Gut, Felix." "Done and done!" Twenty seconds later a figure in Santa Claus red came clashing into the room. Hartford, half into his blue safety-suit, came to a clumsy attention. The newcomer, his helmet clammed shut all ready for contamination, bellowed, "Get with it, Mister!" "Yes, sir." Hartford fit himself into the suit, a sort of cockpit, a congeries of valves, gauges, counters and vetters. In a moment he'd sealed himself in the sterile suit, checked his air-filters and air reserve. "The Guard is assembled in the Hot Gut, sir, ready to take the field." "Dam' well better be," Nef said. "Lead off, Mister." He turned to Paula Piacentelli. "Send a Decontamination Vehicle after us, Lieutenant. No telling what those Stinker devils have cooked up with Piacentelli." Back to Hartford: "You're in command of the Guard, I'll observe and offer suggestions." "Tain-HUT!" Platoon Sergeant Felix saluted the scarlet-clad colonel and the blue-clad lieutenant as they stepped from the elevator into the electric atmosphere of the Hot Gut. The Guard snapped to, their plastic-packaged Dardick-rifles at order arms. "Take 'em out, Felix," Hartford said. "Two personnel carriers, a .50-caliber m.g.-mounted jeep fore and aft. You and the colonel take the rear jeep; I'll lead. Have the men unbag their weapons the instant we're outside. Any questions?" "No, sir." "Move out," Hartford said. IV The squads peeled off and double-timed down the Hot Gut. Man by man they dipped into the Wet Gut for their swim outside. They'd been drilled for speed in exiting. If the Regiment were needed outside, the Syphon could become a literal bottle-neck. As the last squad splashed into the antiseptic solution, Hartford turned to Colonel Nef. "Sir, I have a question," he said. "Hurry it up, Mister." "Isn't this a bit extreme, sir? We're going out to take one man out of a primitive village where we're not even sure he's in trouble. And we're carrying enough firepower to blast into an armed city."