He hesitated, but the robot, dropping to the ground, led him unerringly to a small lock opening on one of the back streets. Pausing in the darkness, Frederix peered through the glassite wall. A young Martian policeman stood smoking thoughtfully beneath a carbon arc, handsome and proudly erect in his bright, apparently-new uniform, quite alone in this narrow thoroughfare. Frederix's hand dropped to the disrupter, shifted to the needle-gun, and, opening the lock slowly, he aimed and pressed the trigger. Leaping within, he caught the paralyzed youth, lowering him into the shadows of a nearby doorway. A surge of commendation beat in his brain--praise for his choice of weapons. For why should one so young and handsome die? Why should any of Sol's disillusioned billions die because of a few greedy men who had rushed into a band which would damn the entire system unless someone revealed their duplicity, which had already precipitated all manner of internal strife? Violence would avail naught; they must be shown the plain truth of it so that they might live and be free! The robot hurried away now, turned swiftly in a high-arched tunnel which intersected the street, and led Frederix to the fantastically carven front of a large mansion whose portal had been but recently blasted asunder. Over that shattered door was the crest of Jethe the munitions baron, and _within the room_-- Nausea seized Frederix's stomach. Hoary-haired Jethe, dealer in power for peace or war, was sprawled across a paper-strewn table in terrible death, his wizened face and body ribboned into one horrible mess of blood and gore, sliced by a disrupter, signature no doubt of Meevo or Onupari-- Dizzy with the sheer bestiality of the scene but driven by some manner of apprehension, Frederix threaded his way through the debris to an all-wave radio clinging on the farther wall, snapped the switch and dialed to the Kaa frequency. A message was coming through, clear now, proof that the sandstorm had subsided and skies were clear. Frederix recognized the cold emotionless voice of Blake, the Kaa chief operator. "... the message you've found may ring true, but in the light of Cravens' message from Certagarni, proving Frederix to be in league with anti-service factions, we find that we cannot send ships to a possible trap in Calidao until you've learned from Andres what's really behind all this. Please inform us of any developments. Off!" Oh, the blind fools! They had found Andres and the message but would do nothing until the paralytic spell had worn away! And Onupari must have been in this room hours before; his ship, prepared for flight, must have long been loaded! He left the place of death at a run.