m good enough.

Prentiss did not kill him. He had no compunctions about doing such a
thing, but it would have been an unnecessary waste of needed manpower.
He gave Haggar a carefully painful and bloody lesson that thoroughly
banished all his lust for conflict without seriously injuring him. The
duel was over within a minute after it began.

Bemmon, who had witnessed the challenge with keen interest and then
watched Haggar's defeat with agitation, became excessively friendly and
flattering toward Prentiss afterward. Prentiss felt sure, although he
had no proof, that it had been Bemmon who had spurred the simple-minded
Haggar into challenging him to a duel.

If so, the sight of what had happened to Haggar must have effectively
dampened Bemmon's desire for revenge because he became almost a model
worker.

* * * * *

As Lake had predicted, he and Prentiss worked together well. Lake calmly
took a secondary role, not at all interested in possession of authority
but only in the survival of the Rejects. He spoke of the surrender of
the _Constellation_ only once, to say:

"I knew there could be only Ragnarok in this section of space. I had to
order four thousand people to go like sheep to what was to be their
place of execution so that four thousand more could live as slaves. That
was my last act as an officer."

Prentiss suspected that Lake found it impossible not to blame himself
subconsciously for what circumstances had forced him to do. It was
irrational--but conscientious men were quite often a little irrational
in their sense of responsibility.

Lake had two subleaders: a genial, red-haired man named Ben Barber, who
would have been a farmer on Athena but who made a good subleader on
Ragnarok; and a lithe, cat-like man named Karl Schroeder.

Schroeder claimed to be twenty-four but not even the scars on his face
could make him look more than twenty-one. He smiled often, a little too
often. Prentiss had seen smiles like that before. Schroeder was the type
who could smile while he killed a man--and he probably had.

But, if Schroeder was a born fighter and perhaps killer, they were
characteristics that he expended entirely upon the prowlers. He was
Lake's right hand man; a deadly marksman and utterly without fear.

One evening, when Lake had given Schroeder some instructions concerning
the next day's activities, Schroeder answered him with the half-mocking
smile and the words, "I'll