Each mine was being worked by full day-and-night crews; in fact, by more men than necessary. The reason for that, and for the way the men silently withheld their hostility, was made apparent in a bit of conversation between two miners that he overheard one day: _"... So why all of us here when not this many are needed?"_ _"They say Father Brenn wanted to get all the men out of town, away from the cruiser, so there would be no trouble--and you know there would have been if we had stayed. He wants to get the cruiser on its way back to Vogar, they say, so we can get busy producing weapons to fight the Occupation force...."_ He returned on the fifth evening of the allotted seven days and stopped by Brenn's cottage before going on to the ship. The old man was working in his garden, his trembling hands trying to tie up a red-flowered vine. Kane tied it for him and he said, "Thank you, sir. Did you find the mining to be as I had said?" "I found more than that. You know, don't you, that Y'Nor will return with the Occupation force a hundred days after leaving here?" "Yes--I know that that is his intention." "I understand that you're going to try to build weapons while he's gone. Don't, if you think anything of your people, let them do it. Nothing you could build in a hundred days would last a minute against a cruiser's disintegrators." "I know," Brenn said. "We are supposed to choose between bloody, hopeless resistance and eternal slavery, aren't we? But why should either fate befall a peaceful race?" Kane asked the logical question: "Why shouldn't it?" "The laws of God have always been laws of justice and mercy. Not even the Vogarian State can change them." He thought of the way the State had changed the Lost Islands in one bloody, violent afternoon. Brenn, watching his face, said: "You are skeptical and bitter, my son--but you will learn that a harmless old man can speak with wisdom." "No," he said. "There is neither justice nor mercy in the universe. I know from experience. A man can only choose between the lesser of two evils--and almost anything is less evil than Y'Nor when he's mad." * * * * * He went to the plant the next morning. Inside, wherever he looked, he saw girls in shorts and halters. The place seemed to be alive with partially clad women. He went to the nearest bulletin board and read Brenn's edict of four days before: _Since the excessively warm temperature of the plant causes much discomfort and thereby impairs the efficiency of all workers, and since maximum efficiency will be required to produce the fuel in the extremely short time permitted us, it is suggested that the cool sunsuits of the Beachville girls become the standard work uniform until further notice. These may be obtained for the asking in Department 5-A._ The next day's edict read: