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proximity to Prtglm, but there was some new quality in their manner now that began to infect him with doubt and anxiety.
    The hangar was dark, but Rojer could make out racks of long slim shapes that had a metallic shine: many of them.Light came up and Rojer blinked to adjust to the glare. Gil and Kat audibly moaned.
    These were not probes, Rojer instantly noted: they had a deadly precision of line that made their purpose unmistakable even before his horrified stare took in the deadly bulb of a warhead on the pointed end. And there were an awful lot of them.
    Prtglm’s digits flashed over a terminal and the multiple screens above it flicked on, each with a different view. Three depicted the orbiting sphere ships, another the flat surface of the space field, and the rest were split, sometimes in three separate scenes, showing the largest of the square buildings his probes had found.
    The sick feeling in Rojer’s guts developed rapidly into a certainty that was no precog. If he had not been so immobilized by fear and shock, he would have ’ported himself and his friends out of the hangar. But he couldn’t move. He couldn’t
believe
that Prtglm would make such a devastating unilateral decision. Somehow he had to stop it from happening.
    â€œ TALENT !” Prtglm turned and it had never appeared so massive or forbidding in aspect.
    â€œ GREAT ONE ,” Rojer managed to say before he had to swallow convulsively to wet his dry mouth and throat.
    â€œ YOU SEND MANY THINGS TO WORLD BELOW. YOU SEND THESE. TO THESE PLACES! THEN SQUADRON TAKES SPHERE AND RETURNS WITH TRUE HONOR .”
    â€œSir, these are bombs?” Rojer forgot all ’Dini.
    â€œ OF COURSE ,” and the captain’s body made the massive surge from bottom to top that was an angry reaction to the question: indeed, to any questioning.
    â€œI am not permitted to destroy, sir.” Rojer concentrated on speaking clearly and firmly.
    â€œ YOU ’PORT MANY THINGS. BOMBS ARE BEST !” Most ’Dinivoices expressed little emotion but Prtglm’s intonations were rich with satisfaction and righteous vengeance.
    â€œ I AM NOT PERMITTED TO DESTROY, SIR. MY ORDERS ARE STRICT .” Rojer fell back into ’Dini, hoping he could make his point better in that language. “ YOUR ORDERS ARE TO WATCH, NOT DESTROY. ORDERS WHICH CAME FROM COORDINATOR GKTMGLNT AND ADMIRAL TOHL MEKTURIAN. THIS LOW PERSON CANNOT DISOBEY ORDERS .”
    â€œ LOW PERSON RJR OBEYS THE ORDER OF PRTGLM NOW! OBEY .” Prtglm began to pulse and expand, a frightening aspect that rooted Rojer to the deck but did not alter his determination to disobey.
    â€œI am not permitted, Great One,” he repeated, dropping to one knee in an attitude of respectful subservience.
    â€œ GREAT ONE PRTGLM, RJR IS FORBIDDEN BY HUMAN GREAT ONES TO DESTROY ANYTHING ,” Gil said, inching forward with the greatest respect it could display.
    â€œ THE HUMAN IS TO OBEY OR HUMAN WILL BE ON THE LINE .” Rojer could not believe what he heard.
    â€œ I CANNOT OBEY CAPTAIN PRTGLM !”
    Fury engorged the captain now and, in a movement so swift Rojer could have done nothing to intervene, Prtglm’s top arms descended on Gil’s poll eye and smashed its immature body to the deck.
    â€œ OBEY !” roared Prtglm and, lifting its great gory forearms, began the downward swing that would have also killed Rojer.
    â€œâ€™ PORT ,” Kat cried, shoving Rojer to one side and taking the blow meant for him, which crumbled it beside the mangled body of Gil.
    â€™Port Rojer did, out of the
KTTS
, and to the one place automatic reflexes could take him without conscious thought!

CHAPTER
TWO

    â€œW HERE the hell could he get to?” Captain Osullivan said, scowling with annoyance. “He knows the time he’s due here for the daily report.”
    â€œSir?” Doplas said from his com station, “Ensign Menburia says that Rojer ’ported