. As deadly as your ... ah, gallows."

"We use the gas chamber," Halloran corrected him. His mouth twisted.
"More humane, you know."

There was brief quiet, then the warden said, "Well ... now that we've
finished philosophizing, let's get back to the matter at hand. We can
have everyone that's going ready to leave by seven tonight. Will that be
satisfactory?"

"It'll have to be," Knox grunted.

"Thank you." Halloran reached for his phone, then dropped his hands on
his desk. "I'd like to ask you a question," he said. "Perhaps it's
presumptuous, but I'm rather curious about the ... er, last workings of
our government. Tell me, don't you really have room for our inmates? You
haven't told us how many ships you've built. Or how big they are."

Lansing looked at Knox. The general flushed, then stared at the floor.
Lansing shrugged tiredly.

"Oh, we've plenty of room," he sighed. "But ... our orders are to take
only those completely fit to build a new world. We've ... well, we have
practiced a lot of euthanasia lately."

"Judges," murmured Goldsmid.

"If you had come sooner," there was no anger in Halloran's voice,
"couldn't you have selected some of our people, those that I ... all of
us know are ready for rehabilitation--even on another planet?"

"Perhaps. But no one remembered there was a prison nearby."

The warden looked at the rabbi. Goldsmid raised his heavy shoulders in
an ancient Hebraic gesture.

"That was always the trouble, wasn't it, Pete?" Halloran murmured.
"People never remembered the prisons!"

The telephone beside him shrilled loudly, urgently.

* * * * *

The inmate mopping the floor of Condemned Row's single corridor slowed
in front of Bert Doyle's cell. Doyle was slated for a ride down the
elevator that night to the death cell behind the gas chamber. At the
moment, he was stretched out on his bunk, listening to the soft voice of
Father Nelson.

"Sorry to interrupt," the inmate said, "but I thought you'd like to know
that all hell's busting loose down in the yard."

Father Nelson looked up.

Doyle, too, looked interested. "A riot?" he asked.

"Yessiree, bob!"

"Nonsense!" snapped the priest. "This prison doesn't have riots!"

"Well, it's sure got one, now. 'Scuse me, Father, but it's the truth.
The men grabbed four or five yard guards and the screws in the towers
don't dare shoot!"

He gave up all pretense of work and stood, leaning on his mop-handle