But now the words were coming more easily. Her hands and feet were cold and wet, and her muscles shook, but now she was fighting with the last of the energy in her, she was fighting because she had found the chink in their armor, and she could widen it, could break through! "Oh, very well--I wouldn't do that! Because I've been looking forward to this for so very long. Just to think, I'll be comfortably dried up, and--it'll be legal! No more fear!" "You must be silent, Madame Blair." "Is there some new amendment to the precious Commandments that says I must be silent? The last one I heard was just before I was brought here--Yes, have you heard the latest, gentlemen? An amendment prohibiting the execution of a sentence on an official's wife, until that official is present as a legal witness? But no, I can see you haven't, and hope you get into all kinds of trouble! Chapter--Chapter 580, gentlemen--Book 631, Section 451, Paragraph A, Sub-paragraph 34, Sentence." And abruptly she let the bitter spurt of words taper into silence, and her eyes were wide. Only one of them was at her side--the rest were suddenly grouped around the one in charge, who was nervously fingering a telecall dial. Like children! Doug said they were creatures of pattern, and something had suddenly smashed the pattern to smithereens, and they dared do nothing until they had a firm hold on the torn-up ends again. She had got them scared stiff! _This is it, girl! Move!_ The last of her strength. A swift, sidewise kick, and she buried the heel of one bare foot into the groin of the man who had stayed to guard her. She had braced her other leg on the edge of the low operating table, and thus anchored, the kick carried all the merciless impact that was needed. She did not wait to see the quick look of agony that mottled his face and she was off the table and running before he had sunk silently to his knees. The surgical robe was short and did not hamper her legs, and for the first time since she was a little girl, she ran for the sake of pure, uninhibited speed. She had reached the door marked EXIT ONLY before the rest of them realized what she had done, and then they were after her, their howling voices a mixture of disbelief and dismayed anger. It was a long, wide corridor. The enraged shouts of alarm behind her had already turned it into a thunderously echoing cacophony of pure and terrible noises, and she knew that within moments, around some turn ahead of her there would be more of them, and she would be trapped, and it would be all over.