Breakfast was no better-and no worse-than the ones I made for myself. I ate automatically, sipping the weak cactus tea and chewing doggedly at the gruel, while I looked around at the other tables. There were about thirty prisoners stuffing their faces in this room, and my gaze went from face to face with a growing feeling of despair.

Firstly, most of them had the same vacuous look of blank stupidity as my cellmate. All right, I could accept that, the criminal classes would of course contain the maladjusted and the mental mud walls. But there had to be more than that! I hoped.

Secondly they were all quite young, none out of their twenties. Weren't there any old criminals? Or was criminality a malfunction of youth that was quickly cured by the social adjustment machines? There had to be more to it than that. There had to be. I took some cheer from this thought. All of these prisoners were losers, that was obvious, losers and incompetents. It was obvious once you thought about it. If they had been any good at their chosen profession they wouldn't be inside! They were of no use to the world or to themselves.

But they were to me. If they couldn't supply the illegal facts that I needed, they would surely be able to put me in touch with those who did. From them I would get leads to the criminals on the outside, the professionals still uncaught. That was what I had to do. Befriend them and extract the information that I needed. All was not lost yet.

It didn't take long for me to discover the best of this despicable lot. A little group was gathered around a hulking young man who sported a broken nose and a scarred face. Even the guards seemed to avoid him. He strutted a good deal and the others made room around him when he walked in the exercise yard after lunch, "Who is that?" I asked Willy, who huddled on the bench next to me, industriously picking his nose. He biinked rapidly until he finally made out the subject of my attentions, then waved his hands with despair.