it?" Slade asked. His tone was one of idle curiosity, nothing else.

"No. It's death, gentlemen. As deadly as your ... ah, gallows."

"We use the gas chamber," Halloran corrected him. His mouth twisted. "More humane, you know."

There was brief quiet, then the warden said, "Well ... now that we've finished philosophizing, let's get back to the matter at hand. We can have everyone that's going ready to leave by seven tonight. Will that be satisfactory?"

"It'll have to be," Knox grunted.

"Thank you." Halloran reached for his phone, then dropped his hands on his desk. "I'd like to ask you a question," he said. "Perhaps it's presumptuous, but I'm rather curious about the ... er, last workings of our government. Tell me, don't you really have room for our inmates? You haven't told us how many ships you've built. Or how big they are."

Lansing looked at Knox. The general flushed, then stared at the floor. Lansing shrugged tiredly.

"Oh, we've plenty of room," he sighed. "But ... our orders are to take only those completely fit to build a new world. We've ... well, we have practiced a lot of euthanasia lately."

"Judges," murmured Goldsmid.

"If you had come sooner," there was no anger in Halloran's voice, "couldn't you have selected some of our people, those that I ... all of us know are ready for rehabilitation—even on another planet?"

"Perhaps. But no one remembered there was a prison nearby."

The warden looked at the rabbi. Goldsmid raised his heavy shoulders in an ancient Hebraic gesture.

"That was always the trouble, wasn't it, Pete?" Halloran murmured. "People never remembered the prisons!"

The telephone beside him shrilled loudly, urgently.

The inmate mopping the floor of Condemned Row's single corridor slowed in front of Bert Doyle's cell. Doyle was slated for a ride down the elevator that night to the death cell behind the gas chamber. At the moment, he was stretched out on his bunk, listening to the soft voice of Father Nelson.

"Sorry to interrupt," the inmate said, "but I thought you'd like to know that all hell's busting loose down in the yard."

Father Nelson looked up.

Doyle, too, looked interested. "A riot?" he asked.

"Yessiree, bob!"

"Nonsense!" snapped the priest. "This prison doesn't have riots!"

"Well, it's sure got one, now. 'Scuse me, Father, but it's the truth. The men grabbed four or five yard guards and the screws in the towers don't dare shoot!"

He gave up all pretense of work and stood, leaning on his mop-handle, his rheumy old eyes glowing with a feverish excitement.

Nelson stood up.

"Will you excuse me, Bert?" he asked. "I'd better see if I can help the warden."

Doyle, too, sat up, swung his feet to the steel floor, stood up and stretched. "Sure," he said. His hard face was pale but otherwise he seemed quite calm. "You've been a great help, Father." He looked quizzically at the old inmate. "You lying, Danny? Seems to me the boys have got nothing to beef about here."

"Heh, they sure have now."

"What?"

"Well, I got this from a guy who got it from Vukich who heard it from Joe Mario. Seems there's a big-shot general and some kinda scientist in Mr. Halloran's office." He shifted his grip on the mop-handle. "You gents maybe won't believe this, but it's what Joe heard 'em say to the warden. Outside is all covered with radium and this general and this here scientist are goin' to Mars an' they want the warden to go along. Leavin' us behind, of course. That's what the boys are riotin' about."

Bert Doyle burst into harsh laughter.

"Danny! Danny!" he cried. "I've been predicting this! You've gone stir-bugs!"

"Ain't neither!"

"Just a moment, Bert," Nelson whispered. Aloud he said, "Dan, go call the guard for me, please." When the old man had shuffled out of earshot the priest said to the condemned man, "It could be true, Bert. By radium, he means radioactive material. And there's no