without violence--without sacrificing the good we
already have."

"And you yourself, Dawn. Who are you?"

"I represent that nonentity called the government, Captain."

"A nonentity wouldn't make you what you are, Dawn."

"My name, Captain--" She drew a long breath. "My name is Dawn Farren.
The rest of my family is dying out as the Von Rausches are. Unlimited
power has a way of poisoning the human mind. If wealth is our only
ethical goal, what do we really have when we possess it all? Madness.
Both cartels are shams, Captain Hunter, just as your frontier wars are
shams.

"Yes, you may as well know that, too. Neither fleet has actually
fought the other for a good many years. The planets you blast are
hulks already long dead. It's all a sham, but we have to keep it
alive. We have to make it _seem_ real--until we're sure we've found
something better and more workable for all of us."

The tension in Ann Saymer's muscles started to relax. Very slowly her
body began to slump, in the secondary stage of paralysis.

"What about her?" Hunter asked. "She can still make another
Exorciser--"

"The dream of enslaving mankind is _always_ insanity. We'll put her in
a public clinic, of course. We may have to use her own machine once
more to erase the memory of its structure from her mind. After that
the patent drawings will be destroyed. It's not a superficial cure for
maladjustment that we're after, Captain Hunter, but the cause. All of
Ann's research was up a blind alley--a brilliant waste."

Suddenly Dawn screamed a warning and leveled her blaster at Eric
Young. Hunter sprang back as Dawn fired. But her timing was a second
too late. In a last, blazing agony of life-before-death Young had
regained consciousness long enough to hurl the scalpel at Hunter's
back. Ebbing strength distorted his aim. The blade plunged into Ann's
heart as she slumped against the wall.

After a long pause, Max Hunter moved toward Dawn and took her arm. He
clenched his jaw tight and drew her quickly into the hall. "I want
out, Dawn. There's no healing here. I won't feel free again until I
can look up at the stars."

"The stars. Then you're going back to the service, Captain? You're
running away?"

He didn't answer her until they stood in Eric Young's garden.

"Sham battles for shadow cartels," he said. "That's a child's
subterfuge for the Tri-D space heroes. No, Dawn, the real war is here
in the struggle for information about ourselves so that