ice at the other end of the
connection said it as you would say talking dinosaur.

"Yeah, loading foreman. At night I'm in charge here. Listen, you the
manager?"

"The manager--" haughtily--"is asleep. I am the night clerk."

"O.K., then. You tell those hundred girls of yours to hurry. Don't scare
them, but have you heard about the prison break?"

"Heard about it? It's all I've been hearing. They--they want to stay and
see what happens."

"Don't let 'em!" roared Pitchblend. "Use any excuse you have to. Tell
'em we got centrifigal-upigal and perihelion-peritonitus over here at
the spaceport, or any darn thing. Tell 'em if they want to blast off
tonight, they'll have to get down here quick. You got it?"

"Yes, but--"

"Then do it." Pitchblend hung up.

The escape bell tolled a fourth time.

* * * * *

His name was House Bartock, he had killed two guards in his escape, and
he was as desperate as a man could be. He had been sentenced to
Interstelpen for killing a man on Mars in this enlightened age when
capital punishment had been abolished. Recapture thus wouldn't mean
death, but the prison authorities at Interstelpen could make their own
interpretations of what life-in-prison meant. If House Bartock allowed
himself to be retaken, he would probably spend the remaining years of
his life in solitary confinement.

He walked quickly now, but he did not run. He had had an impulse to run
when the first escape bell had tolled, but that would have been foolish.
Already he was on the outskirts of Triton City because they had not
discovered his escape for two precious hours. He could hole up in the
city, lose himself somewhere. But that would only be temporary.

They would find him eventually.

Or, he could make his way to the spaceport. He had money in his
pocket--the dead guard's. He had a guardsman's uniform on, but stripped
of its insignia it looked like the jumper and top-boots of any spaceman.
He had false identification papers, if needed, which he had worked on
for two years in the prison printshop where the prison newspaper was
published. He had....

Suddenly he flattened himself on the ground to one side of the road,
hugging the gravel and hardly daring to breathe. He'd heard a vehicle
coming from the direction of Interstelpen. It roared up, making the
ground vibrate; its lights flashed; it streaked by trailing a jet of
fire.

House Bartock didn't move until the afterglow h