His hand gripped the side of the car. Beside him Lauchstein said something. Then he heard Doctor Umbana. "Childish," Doctor Umbana snorted. "Ridiculous. When are people going to outgrow these silly games?" "Probably never," Lauchstein said. "You can't change human nature." The bagpipes screamed triumph. Sabo had outmaneuvered the Belderkans. MacFarland's driver switched on the fans and the car leaped between the lines of running men. Outside the double line, Belderkan soldiers ran to block the exit from the human alley. They were too late. When the car shot out the front of the line, the Belderkans were yards behind. "The crowd's got us blocked," Crawford Bell said. "It took too long." Sabo's men were climbing onto the decks of their carriers. The crowd stretched between the convoy and the airport. Moving on a short radius, it could block them no matter how widely they circled. MacFarland glanced at his watch. Eleven o'clock. "What have you got, Crawford?" "Psycho gas'll break them up." "No. Use psycho gas on a crowd like that and they may go berserk. It's been a long time since a human being died in a battle. I'd hate to be the man responsible for ending a winning streak." * * * * * Crawford Bell tapped the keys of his computer. His eyes studied the crowd. The night before he had programmed the computer with data on Belderkan culture. Now he turned his immediate observations and trained hunches into mathematical quantities and fed them into the machine. "You said you had some girls." "I'm calling them now," MacFarland said. The crowd was about five hundred yards away. The people were singing the national anthem of the Belderkan Republic. He could barely hear the loudspeaker above his head. "Eagle nine here," a voice said on his radio. "Eagle One. Can you see the crowd?" "We're watching them." "Attack. Hit them on my left." He put the mike down. Crawford Bell was reciting a string of figures into the mike. "Sound," the psych technician said. "Tell Sabo to keep his pipes quiet." The helicopter still marked them with its spotlight. Its loudspeaker pleaded with the scientists. By straining his ears, he could hear some of what it said. The pleas made him a little uncomfortable. What had he said to Doctor Umbana? "It's starship time, Doctor. We've abolished international violence. We've conquered poverty and disease. We've explored the Solar System out to Saturn and if we haven't gone further, it's because nobody thinks it's worth the effort. Where do we go now? We can't stand still. We've developed psychological techniques that turn men into brainless slaves and the pressures of international competition are forcing us to use them. To stay free, the human race has to expand. It's star ship time and we need you."