I won't, I promised in grim silence. That message had now been well drilled into my medulla oblongata. The truth was inescapable. I had done everything wrong in my eagerness to get out of prison. Now I would see if I could get it right.

I had been in too much of a rush. There should never have been any hurry. After he had arrested me, Captain Varod, strongman of the League Navy, had admitted that he knew all about the lockpick that I had hidden. He did not like prisons, he had told me that. Although he was a firm believer in law and order he did not believe I should be incarcerated on my home planet, Bit 0' Heaven, for all of the troubles that I had caused there. Neither, for that matter, did 1. Since he knew I had the lockpick I should have bided my time. Waited to make my escape during the transfer out of this place.

During the transfer. It had never been my intention of doing anything but serve my time here in this heavily guarded and technologically protected prison in the middle of the League building in the center of the League base on this planet called Steren-Gwandra—about which I knew absolutely nothing other than its name. I had been enjoying the rest, and the meals, a real pleasure after the rigors of war on Spiovente and the disgusting slop that passed for food there. I should have kept on enjoying, building my strength in preparation for my imminent freedom. So why had I tried to crack out of here?

Because of her, a woman, female creature briefly seen and instantly recognized. One glimpse and all reason had fled, emotion had ruled and I had attempted my disastrous escape. I grimaced at the memory, recalling all too clearly how this idiot adventure had begun.

It had been during our afternoon exercise period, that wildly exciting occasion when the prisoners were let out of their cells arid permitted to shufile around the ferroconcrete yard under the gentle light of the double suns.