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fuck was Quell going to get out of here?
    He supposed that if he were a brilliant schemer like Natch, he
would have already deduced an escape. Or if he were a charismatic statesman like his son Josiah, he would have managed to forge a truce
with the connectibles by now. He would have shown them all the
futility of playing silly war games and breaking thumbs to suit the
whims of a madman.

    But Quell was neither schemer nor statesman. He was a bio/logic
engineer and a stubborn old fool, and he could think of nothing to do
but lie in the rut the Defense and Wellness Council had thrown him in.

    The door to the airlock opened and eight prisoners came stumbling
out. All Islanders but one, by the rustic look of their wardrobe.
    Quell felt the battle frenzy take hold of him. He vaulted over the
crate and let out a cry of anger that reverberated throughout the dock.
The prisoners froze in place, panicked; one of them collapsed quivering
to the ground. And then Quell was pounding across the floor, a bellowing behemoth with rifle held aloft in both hands. Three black code
darts went flying past Quell's right shoulder as three different connectible gunmen underestimated how fast a big man could run. In
seven long strides he made it to the row of crates the enemy had staked
out. He hoped that Plithy and the others were following the plan, but
he was quite past the point of return by now.
    The Islander made a flying leap over some big steel drum and
began wildly spraying the gathered connectibles with dartfire in
midair. There were twelve of them and only one of him, yet clearly
Quell had put them on the defensive. Two of his darts even found targets before he felt half a dozen pinpricks line up along his torso. Icy
paralysis grabbed hold of him.
    Shit, thought Quell as he caught a glimpse of the hard concrete
block that he would be crashing against any second now. Why do I
always forget to watch out for the landing?
    He crashed, hard.

    But not before seeing the connectibles all collapse to the ground
themselves, victim to the Islanders who had snuck up behind them.
Even Plithy had managed to plug one of the bastards.
    Quell smiled to himself in spite of the agony. Misdirection: it was
the oldest and simplest of combat tactics, one that even a bio/logic
engineer with no military training could figure out. Draw the enemy's
attention and their fire with the largest, loudest distraction you could
find, then launch the real assault where they least expected. Sometimes
the simplest tactics were the most effective.
    The Islander clawed his way back to consciousness ten minutes
later. He felt as if someone had doused his chest with flaming tar, and
he could scarcely move his arms or legs. But he knew from experience
that these black code pain routines only lasted so long. Blistering
agony for half an hour was better than weeks of grinding pain from
broken thumbs.
    "Fucking incredible," said a grinning Plithy as he and Rick Willets
draped Quell's arms over their shoulders and helped him to his feet.
    "Crazy," agreed Willets.
    All of the connectibles had been corralled into the center of the
dock and roped tightly together. Most of them would be left in the
dock for the next connectible patrol that passed through. A few would
be singled out for the thumb treatment, or worse.
    Meanwhile, most of the new prisoners had already vanished down
into the unconnectible level of the prison, where doubtless some young
punk like Plithy was giving them an initiation into the ways of the
Orbital Detention and Rehabilitation Facility, Twelfth Meridian. All
except for one, the tall, gangly fellow who had slipped to the floor in
shock when Quell had let out his war cry. Seemed like the man had
managed to smack his forehead against the floor when he fell. He was
sitting up, dazed but being tended to by two of the unconnectible team.
    Quell took a closer look and strangled back a gasp. He knew this
man. This man had been