“They’ll be all right,” Kennon said. “It’s just food poisoning. I suggest you check your kitchen and your food handlers. There’s a break in sanitation that could incapacitate your whole command. I found a few things wrong but there are probably more.” “I’ll check on it--and thanks for the advice,” Mullins said. “Sit down, Doctor. Your airboat won’t be serviced for another few minutes. Tell me how things are on the main island. How’s Blalok?” “You know him?” “Of course. I used to be a frequent visitor there. But with that young pup here, I couldn’t leave. I didn’t dare to. He’d have disrupted routine in a single day. Look what he did in half an hour. Frankly, I owe you a debt for getting him off my hands.” Mullins chuckled dryly. “That’s a fine thing to say,” Kennon grinned. “But I can sympathize. It took us two months to straighten out Alexandria after the Boss-man sent him here.” “I heard about that.” “Well--we’re under control now. Things are going pretty smoothly.” “They’ll be better here,” Mullins said. “Now that Douglas is gone.” He shrugged. “I hope the Boss doesn’t send him back. He’s hard to handle and he makes discipline a problem.” “Could you tell me--or would it be violating security?” Kennon said. “Why do you have a Class II installation on full war footing out here?” Mullins chuckled. “It’s no secret,” he said. “There was a commercial raid on this place about fifty years ago. Seems as though one of our competitors didn’t like us. Alexandria was on a war footing then and managed to hold them off. But it scared the Old Man. You see, our competitive position is based on Lani labor. Our competitors didn’t know that. Their intelligence wasn’t so good. Up until that time, we’d been keeping the males out here in what was hardly more than a stockade. Those people could have taken a few dozen females and a couple of males and they’d have been in business. But they didn’t know. They tried to smash Alexandria instead. Naturally they didn’t have a chance. And after it was over the Old Man got smart. He still had the tapes for Alexandria so he built a duplicate out here and spent a few millions on modern armament. The way we’re set now it’d take a battle group to hurt us.” “But how about security? Don’t the others know about the Lani now?” “It’s a moot question. But it won’t do them any good. They can’t crack this place, and without males, all the females on Flora wouldn’t do them enough long-term good to pay for the force they’d need to be successful.” “So that’s why the males are isolated.”