long since been proved that legalized murder, execution by the State,
solved nothing, helped no one, prevented no crimes, and did infinitely
more harm than good in the long run.

With the coming of the Controllers, a movement had arisen to bring back
the old evil of judicial murder, but it had been quickly put down when
the Penal Cluster plan had been put forth as a more "humane" method.

Hibernene was a drug that had been evolved from the study of animals
like the bear, which spent its winters in an almost death-like sleep. A
human being, given a proper dosage of the drug, lapsed into a deep coma.
The bodily processes were slowed down; the heart throbbed sluggishly,
once every few minutes; thought ceased. It was the ideal prison for a
mental offender that ordinary prisons could not hold.

But it wasn't quite enough for the bloodthirsty desire for vengeance
that the Normals held for the Controllers. There had to be more.

Following Earth in its orbit around the sun, trailing it by some
ninety-three million miles, were a group of tiny asteroids, occupying
what is known as the Trojan position. They were invisible from Earth,
being made of dark rock and none of them being more than fifteen feet in
diameter. But they had been a source of trouble in some of the early
expeditions to Mars, and had been carefully charted by the Space
Commission.

Now a use had been found for them. A man in a spacesuit could easily be
chained to one of them. With him was a small, sun-powered engine and
tanks of liquified food concentrates and oxygen. Kept under the
influence of hibernene, and kept cool by the chill of space, a man could
spend the rest of his life there--unmoving, unknowing, uncaring, dead as
far as he and the rest of Mankind were concerned--his slight bodily
needs tended automatically by machine.

It was a punishment that satisfied both sides of the life-or-death
argument.

Houston shook off the bleak, black feeling of terrible chill that had
crept over him and pushed his way into the UN Police building.

* * * * *

The thirteenth floor housed the Psychodeviant Division. As he stood in
the rising elevator, Houston wondered wryly if the number 13 was good
luck or bad in this case.

He stepped out of the elevator and headed for the Division Chief's
office.

Division Chief Reinhardt was a heavy-set, balding man, built like a
professional wrestler. His cold blue eyes gleamed from beneath s