tarted toward the door. Then he stopped, patted his chest and said,
"Oh--my freezer. I guess the boys took it away...."

Larkin turned to Baldy. "Give him his weapon."

Baldy took the freezer from his pocket and casually tossed it to Pell.

A sudden change came over Pell, then. His smile disappeared. He stepped
quickly away from Ciel, whirled and faced all of them. He pointed the
freezer. "All right, everybody stay perfectly still--you, too, Ciel.
This is where we break up your little Supremist nightmare."

Larkin stared in utter amazement. Nebel's turtle lids opened wide. Ciel
brought her hand to her throat.

Red's hand blurred suddenly, going for his own weapon. Pell squeezed the
trigger, the violet sparks danced for an instant, and then Red stood
frozen with his hand almost to his chest.

"I'd advise nobody else to try that," said Pell, and then in an ironical
tone to Larkin: "C.I.B. agents are trained to be pretty quick with a
freezer, right, Chief?"

Larkin seemed to find his voice now. "But--how--what happened? You were
injected. How can you...."

"I just took a little precaution, that's all," said Pell. "There'll be
plenty of time to explain it all later. You'll probably hear the whole
thing in court, Larkin, when I testify at your trial for treason.
Meanwhile, all of you just stay nice and calm while I use the viewer."

He stepped to the viewer and dialed with his free hand. The plate
glowed, shimmered and a moment later the pale, grave face of Theodor
Rysland came into view. His eyebrows rose as he saw the weapon in Pell's
hand and glimpsed the people beyond Pell. "Hello--what's this all
about?"

"Haven't time to explain fully now," said Pell, "but I want you to get
to Larkin's country house as soon as you can. I'll call agent Kronski in
a moment and have him bring some others, and together we'll take Larkin
and Nebel into custody. They're behind the Supremist movement--a
deliberate attempt to take over the government. They did it with a drug;
that's how Supremist's are made."

"What's this? A drug?"

"Think about it later," said Pell. "Just grab the facts right now. The
drug makes a person subject to post-hypnotic commands--that's why your
Supremists are blindly, unthinkingly loyal. However, the command can be
erased by a second treatment. That'll be tough and take a lot of
ferreting out, but it won't be impossible." He glanced at Ciel, and saw
that she was staring at him with horror--with enmity