hidden his little space cruiser. Oh, it was Paine,
all right, all right."

"But what harm did he do? I don't understand," Ronny scowled.

"He threw the whole shebang on its ear. Last I heard, the planet had
broken up into three main camps. They were whaling away at each other like
the Assyrians and Egyptians. Iron weapons, chariots, domesticated horses.
Agriculture was sweeping the planet. Population was exploding. Men were
making slaves out of each other, to put them to work. Oh, it was a mess
from the viewpoint of the original nature boys."

A red light flickered on his desk and Sid Jakes opened a delivery drawer
and dipped his hand into it. It emerged with a flat wallet. He tossed it
to Ronny Bronston.

"Here you are. Your badge."

Ronny opened the wallet and examined it. He'd never seen one before, but
for that matter he'd never heard of Section G before that morning. It was
a simple enough bronze badge. It said on it, merely, _Ronald Bronston,
Section G, Bureau of Investigation, United Planets_.

Sid Jakes explained. "You'll get co-operation with that through the
Justice Department anywhere you go. We'll brief you further on procedure
during indoctrination. You in turn, of course, are to co-operate with any
other agent of Section G. You're under orders of anyone with"--his hand
snaked into a pocket and emerged with a wallet similar to Ronny's--"a
silver badge, carried by a First Grade Agent, or a gold one of Supervisor
rank."

Ronny noted that his badge wasn't really bronze. It had a certain sheen, a
brightness.

Jakes said, "Here, look at this." He tossed his own badge to the new man.
Ronny looked down at it in surprise. The gold had gone dull.

Jakes laughed. "Now give me yours."

Ronny got up and walked over to him and handed it over. As soon as the
other man's hand touched it, the bronze lost its sheen.

Jakes handed it back. "See, it's tuned to you alone," he said. "And mine
is tuned to my code. Nobody can swipe a Section G badge and impersonate an
agent. If anybody ever shows you a badge that doesn't have its sheen, you
know he's a fake. Neat trick, eh?"

"Very neat," Ronny admitted. He returned the other's gold badge. "Look, to
get back to this Tommy Paine."

But the red light flickered again and Jakes brought forth from the
delivery drawer a hand gun complete with shoulder harness. "Nasty weapon,"
he said. "But we'd better go on down to the armory and show you its
workings."

He stood up.