"Reference?" The veins on his throat stood out, but his voice was not a sudden bellow from indignation. "You forget my position! How soon may I expect the unit?" "As soon as possible, sir." He hung up. "Damn," he said. "Damn it to hell anyway!" "Doug, can I do anything?" "No, honey, no. We've just got to sweat it out until that pack gets here. It'll be all right." He forced a smile, sank to a chair, put his head in his hands. She knelt beside him. "The film-strips, that you saw--they must have been--horrible." He looked up. "Horrible isn't the word. God, what people. And at first they seemed so--What a cold-blooded, ruthless--" "Easy, mister." She came closer to him and he felt himself relax slowly at the warmth of her touch. "What a system.... I guess I read over those reports a dozen times. They know there is no possible way to tell how long such an awful mental shock will stay--even in the impressionable mind of a half-grown child. Yet they accept it as full-blown conditioning process--they _believe_ in it! They _believe_ in everything around here--they worship the government, the Prelate General, the Director--even me! And because there's no war and hasn't been since the first Prelatinate, they keep right on believing that from the day you fight in the games--if you survive--till the day you die, you're thoroughly conditioned against physical violence--" He let the sentence taper off into silence. "Just rest awhile, darling," she murmured. He smiled. "Thanks, Dot. But I've got to get that mess downstairs cleaned up. I'll be all right." The equipment--the neat sorted rows of resistors, condensers, vacuum tubes and the rest of it glittered on the long, wide expanse of the workbench he'd installed. At one end was a half-completed framework, and at the other--was the blackened ruin of what had been a transformer. The burnt-out unit had cooled, but the stench of overheated oil and melted insulation still hung in the air trapped in the blue haze of smoke. "Can any of the rest be assembled in the meantime, Doug? I'll help...." * * * * * He busied himself with the blackened junk. "It could, but it's not worth the chance. It's got to be so damn perfect. I've got to know exactly what I'm going to be able to get out of the pack. Got to have at least 1,000 Volts--or should I say Kemps--anyway. Damn the DC...." He hadn't found out about the utility power in the house until he'd blown up the transformer. It was a little thing, direct current rather than alternating current, but it meant time, and there wasn't much time. He knew there'd be no chance of his getting through the games undetected, even if he found a way somehow to stomach such a horror. There was a gentle chiming sound. "The front door, Doug!" "Guess I really threw a scare into 'em! You go up first, I'll douse the lights." There were two of them, and their uniforms were white. Their helicopter idled on the front lawn. They saluted.