She was to wait, the Council had informed her. Wait, while the information she had given them was analyzed, digested. As though, perhaps, what she had said was part of some insidious plot; as though it were too fantastic to be the truth. They had not even immediately authorized the dispatch of a patrol cruiser to the spot where she'd left Lance and Kriijorl over two hours ago, and by now--? She tried not to think or what the Earthman and the Ihelian might be facing, alone and in the darkness. Nor of the conclusions to which the Council, called into emergency session by the President General himself when her information had been rapidly relayed through the correct channels to him, might arrive. She could only wait. And her waiting was terminated with an abrupt suddenness that made the twisting cold thing inside her a churning confusion. It had been only minutes, hardly minutes. Only one of them came into the small room where she sat. She rose quickly to attention. It was an aide to the President General himself; a brevet-Colonel wearing the uniform of the World Police. "Sergeant Kent," he said, "it is the Council's decision that you be placed under temporary arrest. Your case will be heard at the next sitting of the martial court to which your unit is assigned. If you will accompany me, please...." "May I ask, sir, what the charge against me is?" Her voice was steady by cultivated habit. "You are to be held on suspicion of acting as accessory before and after the fact of conspiring to assist an alien power in the achievement of its objective within the governmental jurisdiction of Earth without official permission of the New United Nations." "But the Ihelians have not done that, sir!" she protested. "It is a plot of their enemy, as I explained to the Council--" "You will be given full benefit of due legal process, sergeant," the officer said. "You will come with me, please." The Women's Detainment Barrack was not unpleasant, yet, Judith thought, it may as well have been a medieval dungeon. But her own problem, she knew, was nothing beside the cunning success of the Thrayxites. The call-buzzer at the side of her bunk interrupted her thoughts; it meant she was wanted in the main guard room. She straightened her uniform quickly, and within moments presented herself before the barrack warden. Roger Cain stood beside the warden's desk. There was something white in his hand, and she knew what it was. "You're at liberty, Sergeant Kent," the beefy-faced warden informed her in a tone as casual as though she'd asked her for a cigarette. "Warrant Officer Cain has posted a release voucher; you're ordered into his custody until your trial. That's all. You may go." She left the barrack with Cain, wordlessly. None of it made sense. Unless-- "Well, don't I even get a thank you?" the red-haired giant asked. "Yes, Mister Cain, sorry. But I don't understand--"