Nixon felt desperate, and he knew he looked it--ragged and dirty, his clothes tattered where the barrage had burned them, and his face with sunken cheeks covered by a ragged growth of black beard. And he knew he was ill. The lack of exercises perhaps, because always on Earth Allen Nixon had been used to great muscular activity. The food and water the Gorts brought him, lately had been distasteful. It was strange stuff, at best. And there was the apprehension of his fate--the damnable sitting and waiting. "Whatever Tork is after," Nixon was saying, "it's something Frane would not want. Nor you--nor any of those who are like you. For your sake as well as mine, you've got to go into this with me." He persuaded them at last. Loto had the youthful, reckless enthusiasm of youth. He was like Nixon himself, in that! And they both trusted the giant. "Tonight will be best," Loto said. "Greev will be on duty--" Greev was one of the Orite guards in charge of the barrage mechanism. His little post was back in a recess on a ledge of the butte. From where Nixon was sitting its cave-entrance was dimly visible off at the left end where the barrage ended at the rock-face. To Nixon it was about ten feet up; to the Orites it was a climb of about a hundred feet, up a steep winding rock-path from the other side of the butte. Greev was a rough fellow who had seemed much interested in Nona. Often he had urged her to come up there and sit with him through the long tedious hours of his duty. "What time would be best?" Nixon demanded. "I could go soon after the moon-rise," Nona said. An hour from now. Nona would talk to the guard. She would contrive that just for a moment or two they would leave the little cave-entrance, walking along the ledge in the shimmer of the moon. And, unseen, Loto would be up there. "It can be done," Nixon said. "You're sure you understand the mechanisms, Loto?" "Oh yes, yes." Perched on the seated giant's upraised knee, Loto and Nona suddenly clutched at the huge folds of his trousers to keep from falling as the knee jerked. And Nixon's hand had gone up to his forehead--a sweep of wind that was like a little swirl of storm. "What's the matter?" Loto demanded anxiously. "I don't know," Nixon murmured. "I sure feel sick." A wave of nausea and dizziness had swept him, convulsing his muscles. "This food I get here don't seem to agree with me," Nixon added. "Lately, I--" He sucked in his breath as the inescapable thought came to him. "Poison!" he gasped. "That's it! Poisoning me--those damned little--" "Not so loud!" Loto murmured. "You're voice is a roar. It could be heard up there in the control room." Poisoning the giant! His body was so tremendous that they could only give him enough to be slow-acting, making him gradually sick. Nona and Loto were aghast. More than ever now, this plan to free the giant and let him rule this world as Frane and the others would want it ruled, must succeed tonight.