"I warned you before not to let your cleverness betray you," she said. "Let's be realistic about this. Earth is our next target, she's going to be hit warning or no warning, and she's going to be beaten. Now. Do you imagine Earth can get better and more merciful treatment from Varsek, or from me?" "When you put it that way," Wyatt said thoughtfully, "I can see a preference. All right, Brinna. When do you think you can arrange the escape?" "The only chance will be some time during the attack on Alpha Centauri. I'll get word to you as soon as the arrangements are made, but don't get impatient. You heard Varsek. I'll have to move very cautiously." "And what happens to me in the meantime?" "You'll be questioned. Oh, not like that. Varsek reserves the pit for special cases. By our Intelligence group, by subterfuge--the captives' quarters are thoroughly monitored and don't forget it--and by Varsek himself, probably. Don't antagonize him, Wyatt, or you could find yourself in the pit at that." They had come to a transverse corridor, and now Brinna gave him a warning glance and said in a sharp impersonal tone, "That way." Her hand was on the butt of her stunner. Wyatt turned obediently, into the transverse corridor. A guard who had been lounging midway of it snapped to attention. He was stationed beside a door. Brinna marched Wyatt up to him and said, "Another one for the tank," and the guard said, "Yes, sir." He did a complicated series of things with his hands, apparently activating power sources that released various locks, and the door opened. "Inside," the guard said to Wyatt, and jerked his thumb. With no further word to Brinna, Wyatt stepped through the door. It closed behind him with the sound of a bank vault shutting for the night. The room he stood in was fairly large and it had bunks all around the walls. About sixteen bunks, Wyatt thought, and there were about a dozen men sitting on the edges of them, or sitting around a table bolted to the floor in the center of the room. They were all looking at him. They were the damnedest collection of humanity, or whatever you wanted to call it, that Wyatt had ever come across. He remembered Brinna's complaint that the accessible people, the ones easily picked up without giving any wide-spread alarm, usually lived in isolated regions and were without much in the way of technical knowledge.