rong," said Savage. "I'll have a jet car brought around.
You can go right down to his hut."

"Er--may I ask a question, sir?" asked Tom.

The major smiled. "Go right ahead, Corbett."

"It's about this whole setup," explained Tom. "I was expecting fences
and prisoners and--well, most anything but green grass and small white
buildings!"

"The little huts you saw," replied the major, "are as much of a prison
as we have. Each hut holds one prisoner. He has all the necessary
furniture, in addition to audioceivers and story spools which he can
change once a week. He also has basic garden equipment. All prisoners
grow everything they eat. Each man is dependent on himself and is
restricted to the hut and the area around it. If he comes within two
miles of the tower, the guards will pick him up on radar and order him
back. If he comes within one mile, they fire without further warning.
Only one man has ever escaped. Coxine. And that was because we had a
sick man on guard duty, or he never would have made it. He overpowered
the guard, took his uniform, and stowed away on a supply ship. We caught
him a year later."

"Didn't your radar pick up the disk he was wearing, sir?" asked Roger.

"That method of protection was only installed a few months ago," said
the major.

"And the prisoners just sit there--in those little huts?" asked Astro.

"Yes, Astro!" said the major with a tone of finality in his voice. "They
just sit. This is the end of the line."

The three cadets looked at each other and secretly vowed never to take a
chance of doing anything that would send them to the Rock.

Five minutes later, Strong was driving a jet car along a narrow paved
road toward one of the white huts. Astro sat beside him grimly silent,
his hands balled into tight hamlike fists. They rounded a curve and
Strong pulled up in front of the house. As they climbed out of the car,
they could see the trim neat lanes of the little garden with carefully
printed signs on each row indicating what was growing. They started for
the house and then stopped short. Bull Coxine stood in the doorway,
watching them.

Dressed in the snow-white coverall of the prison garb, Coxine faced them
squarely, his thick trunklike legs spread wide apart. He was a giant of
a man with long heavily muscled arms that dangled from a huge pair of
shoulders. His jet-black hair was a tangled unkempt mass, and his face
was scarred and lined. Eyes blazing with unconcealed hatred