"Which appears to be exactly what they want us to do," Gleed pointed out with some annoyance. "I can tell you something here and now-they'll get their way over my dead body."

"That's how," agreed Harrison. "Over your dead body."

Chapter 11.

Matt came up with a cloth over one arm. "I'm serving no Antigands."

"You served me last time," Harrison reminded.

"That may be. I didn't know you were off that ship. But I know now." He flicked the cloth across one corner of the table, brushing away imaginary crumbs. "No Antigands served by me."

"Is there any other place where we might get a meal?"

"Not unless somebody will let you plant an ob on them. They won't do that if they know who you are but there's a chance they might make the same mistake as I did." Another flick across the corner. "I don't make them twice."

"You're making one right now," announced Gleed, his voice hard and edgy. He nudged Harrison. "Watch this." His hand came out of a side pocket holding a tiny gun. Pointing it at Mart's middle, he said, "Ordinarily I could get into trouble for this, if those on the ship were in the mood to make trouble. But they aren't. They're more than tired of you two-legged mules." He motioned with the weapon. "So start walking and fetch us two full plates."

"I won't," said Matt, firming his lips and ignoring the gun.

Gleed thumbed the safety-catch which moved with an audible click. "It's touchy now. It'd go off at a sneeze. Get moving."

"I won't," said Matt.

With unconcealed disgust, Gleed shoved the weapon back into his pocket. "I was only kidding you. It isn't loaded."

"Wouldn't have made the slightest difference if it had been," Matt assured. "I serve no Antigands and that is that."

"What if I'd lost control of myself and blown several large holes in you?"

"How could I have served you then?" asked Matt. "A dead person is of no use to anyone. It's time you Antigands learned a little logic." With which parting shot he meandered off.

"He's got something there," offered Harrison, patently depressed. "What can you do with a corpse? Nothing whatever. A body is in nobody's power."

"Oh, I don't know. A couple of stiffs lying around might sharpen the others. They'd become really eager."

"You're thinking of them in Terran terms," Harrison said. "It's a mistake. They are not Terrans no matter where they came from originally. They are Gands."

"Well, just what are Gands supposed to be?"

"I don't know. It's a safe bet they're some kind of fanatics. Terra exported one-track-minders by the millions around the time of the Great Explosion. Look at that crazy crowd on Hygeia, for instance."

"Ah, Hygeia. That was the only time I've ever strutted around wearing nothing but a dignified pose. I was looking forward to seeing Shelton and Bidworthy in their birthday suits. But those two heroes both lacked the guts." He chuckled to himself, went on, "Those Hygeians think that complete nakedness creates real democracy, as distinct from our fake version. I'm far from sure that they're wrong."

"The creation of an empire has also created a cockeyed proposition," mediated Harrison. "Namely, that Terra is always right while more than sixteen hundred planets are invariably wrong. Everyone is out of step but Terra."

"You're becoming kind of seditious, aren't you?"

Harrison offered no reply. Gleed glanced at him, found his attention diverted elsewhere, followed his gaze to a brunette who had just entered.

"Nice," approved Gleed. "Not too old, not too young. Not too fat, not too thin. Just right."

"I know her." Harrison waved to attract her attention.

She tripped lightly across the room, took a chair at their table. Harrison made the introduction.

"Friend of mine, Sergeant Gleed."

"Arthur," corrected Gleed, guzzling her with his eyes.

"Mine's Elissa," she told him. "What's a sergeant supposed to be?"

"A sort of over-above under-thing," said Gleed. "I pass along the telling to the

fellows who do the doing."She viewed him with frank surprise. "Do you mean that people actually allow themselves to be told?"

"Of course. Why not?"

"They must have been born servile." Her gaze shifted to Harrison. "I'll be ignorant of your name forever, I suppose?"

Flushing slightly, he hastened to repair the omission, adding, "But I don't like

James. I prefer Jim."

"Then we'll let it be Jim. Has Matt tended to you two yet?"

"He refuses to serve us."

She shrugged soft, warm shoulders. "It's his right. That's freedom, isn't it?"

"We call it mutiny," said Gleed.

"Don't be childish," she reproved. She stood up, moved away. "You wait here. I'll

see what Seth says."

"I don't understand this," admitted Gleed when she had passed out of earshot.

"According to that fat fellow in the delicatessen, their technique is to give us the

cold shoulder until we run away in a huff. But she's... she's--" He stopped while he sought around for a suitable word, found it and said, "She's un-Gandian."

"Not so," Harrison contradicted. "They've the right to say, 'I won't' any way they

like. She's practicing it."

"By gosh, yes. I hadn't thought of that. They can work it backward or forward,

whichever way they please."

"That's right." Harrison lowered his voice. "Here she comes."

Resuming her seat, she primped her hair and said, "Seth will serve us personally."

"Another traitor," remarked Gleed, grinning.

"On one condition," she went on. "You two must wait and have a talk with him

before you leave."

"It's cheap at the price," Harrison decided. Another thought struck him. "Does this mean you'll have to wipe out several obs for all three of us?"

"Only one for myself."

"How's that?"

"Seth's got ideas of his own. He doesn't feel happy about Antigands any more than

anyone else does."

"And so-- "But he has the missionary instinct. He doesn't agree entirely with the habit of

giving all Antigands the ghost-treatment. He thinks it should be reserved only for those too stubborn or stupid to be converted." She smiled at Gleed, making his top hairs quiver. "Seth thinks that any really intelligent Antigand is a would-be Gand."

"What is a Gand, anyway?" asked Harrison.

"An inhabitant of this world, of course."

"I mean how did they get that name? From where did they dig it up?"

"From Gandhi," she said.

Harrison looked blank. "Who the deuce was he?"

"An ancient Terran. The one who invented The Weapon."

"Never heard of him."

"That doesn't surprise me," she remarked.

"Doesn't it?" He was irritated by this confidence in his ignorance. "Let me tell you

that in these days we Terrans get as good an education as--"

"Calm down, Jim," she advised, making it more soothing by pronouncing it, "Jeem." She patted his arm. "What I mean is that it's highly likely that he's blanked out of your history books. He might have given you unwanted ideas, see?

You couldn't be expected to know what you've never been given the chance to learn."

"If you're saying that Terran history is censored, I don't believe it."

"It's your right to refuse to believe. That's freedom, isn't it?"

"Up to a point."

"To what point?"

"A man has duties. He has no right to refuse those."

"No?" She raised tantalizing eyebrows, delicately curved "Who defines those

duties-himself or somebody else?"

"His superiors most times."