, his eyes blazing. "No dice. This is your game,
not mine. I don't want anything to do with it--"

"But you don't know the game--"

"I know plenty of the game. I followed the trail, right from the start.
I know the whole rotten mess. The trail led me all the way around Robin
Hood's barn, but it told me things--oh, it told me plenty! It told me
about you, and this war. And now you want me to help you! What do you
want me to do? Go down and tell the people it isn't really so bad being
pounded to shreds? Should I tell them they aren't really being bombed,
it's all in their minds? Shall I tell them this is a war to defend their
freedoms, that it's a great crusade against the evil forces of the
world? What kind of a sap do you think I am?" He walked to the window,
his whole body trembling with anger. "I followed this trail down to the
end, I scraped my way down into the dirtiest, slimiest depths of the
barrel, and I've found you down there, and your rotten corporations, and
your crowd of heelers. And on the other side are three hundred million
people taking the lash end of the whip on Earth, helping to feed you.
And you ask me to help you!"

"Once upon a time," Ingersoll interrupted quietly, "there was a fox."

Shandor stopped and stared at him.

"--and the fox got caught in a trap. A big bear trap, with steel jaws,
that clamped down on him and held him fast by the leg. He wrenched and
he pulled, but he couldn't break that trap open, no matter what he did.
And the fox knew that the farmer would come along almost any time to
open that bear trap, and the fox knew the farmer would kill him. He knew
that if he didn't get out of that trap, he'd be finished, sure as sin.
But he was a clever fox, and he found a way to get out of the bear
trap." Ingersoll's voice was low, tense in the still room. "Do you know
what he did?"

Shandor shook his head silently.

"It was a very simple solution," said Ingersoll. "Drastic, but simple.
_He gnawed off his leg._"

Another man had entered the room, a small, weasel-faced man with sallow
cheeks and slick black hair. Ingersoll looked up with a smile, but
Mariel waved him on, and took a seat nearby.

"So he chewed off his leg," Shandor repeated dully. "I don't get it."

"The world is in a trap," said Ingersoll, watching Shandor with quiet
eyes. "A great big bear trap. It's been in that trap for decades--ever
since the first World War. The world has come to a wall it can't climb,
a trap