got to be, sir!" His fingers played across the knobs. "All that metal,
the whole thing is critical as ... Ah!" He jumped back. The screens
flashed into life.

* * * * *

Aku stiffened. His lieutenant gasped audibly, made a jerky movement
towards the screens, then suddenly became aware of three MPs standing
beside him, hands nonchalantly cradling blunt-nosed weapons.

All three receivers showed similar scenes, the milling youngsters and
the ship, but from up close, the pictures jerking and swaying
erratically as if the cameras were somehow fastened to moving human
beings. Then the scenes condensed into a cramped, jostling blackness as
the fifty crowded into the elevator and were lifted up the side of the
ship.

Next, were three views of a large room, bare except for what appeared to
be overhead cranes and other mechanical paraphernalia of a military shop
or warehouse. For a while the fifty moved about restlessly, then the
cameras swung about simultaneously to face a wall that slowly slid
apart.

Rothwell froze. "Good Lord!"

Six murky _things_ moved from the open wall towards the cameras, which
fell back to the opposite side of the room. Each was large, many times
the size of a man, but somehow indistinct, for the cameras didn't convey
any sense of shape or form. For an instant, one of the screens flashed a
picture of a terrified human face, and arms raised protectively as the
shadowy things moved in upon the group.

A projection snapped out from one, grabbed two of the humans, and
hurled them into a corner. Then it motioned a dozen or so others over to
the same spot. With similar harsh, sweeping movements, the group of
humans was quickly broken up into three roughly equal segments. One of
the groups seemed to be protecting someone who appeared seriously hurt.
A black tentacle lashed out and one of the screens went blank. Then
another.

The third showed a small group pushed stumbling through a narrow door,
down a short passageway, and abruptly into blackness. Something that
looked like bars flashed across the screen, then a dark liquid trickled
across the camera lens, blotting out the view.

Eyes blazing, Rothwell whirled on Aku. "Throughout our history,
Commander, humans have had one thing in common, our blasted pride! We
will not turn over our young to slavery, and by hell if we die, we'll
die fighting!" He jerked up his coat sleeve, barked an order into a
small transmitter on