robot death march. Whatever
happened, it was a situation Young could turn to his advantage. If the
mercenaries killed unarmed workers, it could be turned into superb
propaganda. And ultimately, by sheer weight of numbers, the
defenseless mob could overwhelm the mercenaries.

White fire leaped from the blasters. The first rank fell, but the mob
marched blindly across the smoking corpses. The mercenaries fired
again. It was slaughter--brutal and pointless--of slaves unaware of
their danger, unable to save themselves.

Without understanding his own motivation--and without caring--Max
Hunter leaped into the sill of the terminal window. There he was in a
position to fire over the heads of the mob. The blast from his weapon
arrowed into the line of police mercenaries.

Three fell in the agony of the flames. The rest, glad for an excuse to
stop the slaughter, turned and fled. Like clockwork things, the mob
turned back and resumed its precision demonstration in front of the
factory.

Hunter slipped white-faced into a terminal bench. His hand trembled as
he jammed the blaster back beneath his belt.

"Why did you do it, Captain?" Dawn asked.

How could he answer her, without saying he had seen the grids in their
skulls? And he wasn't ready to trust Dawn to that extent.

"The people couldn't help themselves," he said ambiguously.

"Because they're in the U.F.W. and Eric Young cracks the whip. Is that
what you mean?"

"They weren't aware of their own danger."

"Miscalculating the risks then? But that's part of the system,
Captain. If you can't fight your way up to the top--"

"Then the system is utterly vicious."

"You don't mean that," she said.

"Why not? We're living in a jungle society. It's nothing but
conflict--conflict on the frontier and conflict here from the time
they put you in the general school."

"Only the children who have the intelligence--"

"But why?" he interrupted fiercely. "Where does it get us?"

"We have a stable society," she told him. "Peace of a sort. Law
enforcement, too, and a chance to build something better when we learn
how."

"Something better?" He laughed as he stood up. "We'll get that when we
pull this hell apart, and not before."

She put her hand on his arm. "No, Captain. It's not realistic to say
that. Over and over again in the past we wrecked civilization because
good-hearted and conscientious people thought there was no other way
to create a finer world. It didn't wor