Then, close to the globeship's exit hatch, I glimpsed a narrow storage niche--a niche stacked high with neat oblong cases. Fibrox transit boxes. Involuntarily, my breathing quickened. Dragging down the nearest box, I ripped it open. A folded paper fell to the floor: a cargo manifest. I clawed it up ... fumbled it open with fingers numb and stiff as sticks. And there was the stamp, the familiar scarlet label: CLASSIFIED FEDGOV SECURITY SUPPLIES! _PORT INSPECTION FORBIDDEN_ --The label that would permit these boxes to pass customs checks at any port on any planet, throughout FedGov Security's whole far-flung field of operations. * * * * * I turned back to the case itself and tugged out one of the smaller boxes within ... tore off its wrapper, read the nameplate: 'Apex Perceptual Intensifier'. Behind me, Celeste Stelpa asked, "Who is it from, Mark?" I whirled, already crouching. "What are you doing here?" Her wan smile didn't change. "Waiting for you, of course." And then: "You see--I knew you wouldn't go till you'd run this down. There's still too much of your hate left in you." "Oh?" "Hate's that way, Mark, when you displace it. Even if you win one fight, you've got to turn around and hunt another. Because the thing you fight isn't the thing you're really trying to destroy." I said harshly, "I don't know what you're trying to say. I don't think you do, either. But whether you do or don't, I don't care. So far as I'm concerned, you're just another traitor to your race. You're like that Kel who helped us kill the rest of them so he could live. You did the same thing when the globes took over Bejak II. You let them bring you here, helped them put out these thrill-mills--" I broke off as Celeste began to shake. My own hands suddenly weren't steady. A minute passed, and then another and another. Slowly, then, Celeste raised her face. "I hope you think it through sometime, Mark Traynor," she whispered in a tear-choked voice. "I hope you ask yourself what's back of all the hate that's in you, and then try to link that up with me, so you can find the reason why I helped the Kel put out their thrill-mills." I stood very still. "Go on." "Why should I? You already know the answer. Or if you don't, you haven't the mind ever to understand it." Her hands drew into fists, then. Her words came in a furious rush: "I hated them, do you understand? I hated them more than you could ever dream of! I was on Bejak II! I saw the things they did--the way the people were slaughtered. "Only I saw other things too, Mark Traynor! I saw it wasn't the Kel's fault, not all of it. We could have fought them off, if it hadn't been for the FedGov and its racked compulsory conditioning.