"It's ridiculous!" H.D. cried desperately. "It's barbaric! My word, even in our time reasonable people knew that _revenge_ isn't civilized, even against _criminals_. Can't they _rehabilitate_ people?" Garry grimaced, and spoke flatly, slowly. "'There is no known deterrent from harmfully selfish action except fear of punishment. Nor can there be a healthy mind as long as there exists a debt to conscience.' That's a translation from a schoolbook." H.D. sprawled in his chair like a poled ox. He recognized that he was beaten. His eyes stared vacantly, he mumbled over and over, "They can't, they can't." He did not notice the flyer's swooping deceleration. * * * * * Something was shining with a white light. They were hovering. H.D. looked up absently, little interest in his eyes. A great long cave-mouth yawned in the mountain that was Washington, bright in the gathering dusk. "There's our signal." A green eye was blinking rapidly. Junior settled the flyer in a curbed rectangle and H.D. had a moment to note the rows of craft, the conveyors, the rows of brightly lettered doors in the background. Then the door of the flyer opened and a gray-uniformed man almost as big as Junior clambered in, carrying a little leather bag. H.D. watched in silence as the Administrator and the stranger exchanged a few words and some sheaves of paper, to which each affixed a signature. Then the man in gray opened his bag and, with the tools he took out, began to do something to the flyer's instrument panel. He whistled as he worked, a jazzy dance tune, and the sound grotesquely accentuated the silence of the watching three. Jones stirred. "Well, here's where we get off, I guess." He stepped down out of the flyer, Junior after him, but when H.D. mechanically followed, the Administrator's bulk blocked the door. He was smiling with polite embarrassment. "Move, you oaf!" H.D. snapped. "Sorry, Mr. Haworth," Garry said. "You're going on to ... the penal colony." Red rage gripped H.D.; they were treating him like an animal, sending him off like a bull to the packing house. He gripped the door-frame with his hands, and in a quick motion set his foot against Junior's chest. The giant sprawled backwards, and there was a satisfying thump as his head struck the pavement. An iron hand gripped H.D.'s shoulder. The uniformed man's face was completely indifferent, almost bored. He merely held H.D. until he relaxed and sank shaking into a seat. Junior was on his feet, rubbing his head, the oafish smile a little rueful now. The man in gray resumed his work and his whistling. It was intolerable. Those two with their sympathetic silence, and this fellow with his cheerful, loathsome whistling. He had to say something. "How's a little can like this able to get to another planet?"