s escape. With his enforced change in viewpoint, he
took the view that he must seem, at least, to give his captors and
jailers and--as he saw it--his persecutors what they wanted.

They would be pleased to have him dead, provided their consciences were
clear. He built on that as a foundation.

* * * * *

Very shortly before nightfall he performed certain cryptic actions. He
unraveled threads from his shirt and put them aside. There would be a
vision-lens in the ceiling of his cell, and somebody would certainly
notice what he did. He made a light. He put the threads in his mouth,
set fire to his mattress, and laid down calmly upon it. The mattress was
of excellent quality. It would smell very badly as it smoldered.

It did. Lying flat, he kicked convulsively for a few seconds. He looked
like somebody who had taken poison. Then he waited.

It was a rather long time before his jailer came down the cell corridor,
dragging a fire hose. Hoddan had been correct in assuming that he was
watched. His actions had been those of a man who'd anticipated a
possible need to commit suicide, and who'd had poison in a part of his
shirt for convenience. The jailer did not hurry, because if the inventor
of a deathray committed suicide, everybody would feel better. Hoddan had
been allowed a reasonable time in which to die.

He seemed impressively dead when the jailer opened his cell door,
dragged him out, removed the so-far-unscorched other furniture, and set
up the fire hose to make an aerosol fog which would put out the fire. He
went back to the corridor to wait for the fire to be extinguished.

Hoddan crowned him with a stool, feeling an unexpected satisfaction in
the act. The jailer collapsed.

He did not carry keys. The system was for him to be let out of this
corridor by a guard outside. Hoddan growled and took the fire hose. He
turned its nozzle back to make a stream instead of a mist. Water came
out at four hundred pounds pressure. He smashed open the corridor door
with it. He strolled through and bowled over a startled guard with the
same stream. He took the guard's stun-pistol. He washed open another
door leading to the courtyard. He marched out, washed down two guards
who sighted him, and took the trouble to flush them across the pavement
until they wedged in a drain opening. Then he thoughtfully reset the
hose to fill the courtyard with fog, climbed into the driver's seat of
the truck that h