The elevator they hustled me to had not been marked on the map issued to the journalists. Nor had the map even hinted at the many levels below the ground floor that penetrated deep into the bowels of the earth. The pressure hit my eardrums as we dropped about as many floors down as you usually go up in a skyscraper. My stomach sank as well as I realized I had bitten off a good deal more than I could possibly chew. Pushed out at some subterranean level, dragged through locked, barred gates, one after another, until we finally reached a singularly depressing room. Traditionally bare with unshielded lights and a backless stool. I sighed and sat.

My attempts at conversation were ignored, as was my press pass. Which was taken from me along with my shoes-then the rest of my clothes. I pulled on the robe of itchy black burlap that they gave me, dropped back into the chair and made no attempt to outstare my guards.

To be frank this was a kind of a low point, made even lower when the effects of the calm-and-collected pill began to wear off. Just about the time my morale hit bottom the loudspeaker gurgled incomprehensible instructions and I was hurried down the hall to another room. The lights and stool were the same-but this time they faced a steel desk with an even steelier-eyed officer behind it. His glare spoke for him as he pointed to my dissected clothing, bag, shoes.

"I am Colonel Neuredan — and you are in trouble."

"Do you always treat interstellar journalists like this?"

"Your identity is false." His voice had all the warmth of two rocks being grated together. "Your shoes contain molebind projectors .

"There's no law against that!"

"There is on Paskonjak. There is a law against anything that threatens the security of the Mint and the Interstellar Credits produced here."

"I've done nothing wrong."

"Everything that you have done has been wrong. Attempting to deceive our security with false identification, stunning a guard, penetrating the Mint without supervision-these are all crimes under our law. What you have committed so far makes you liable for fourteen concurrent life sentences." His grim voice grew even grimmer. "But there is even worse than that — "