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it. The fingers were still chilled. Professionally, she felt his pulse. Pushkin’s heart was beating vigorously. He gazed up at her as if he did not know her—which he did not, though presently he would. Coming out of S.A. almost invariably produced disorientation and temporary amnesia. But it soon passed.
    “Shall I proceed with data feed?” enquired Matthew.
    Indira smiled faintly. Data feed! What a hell of a phrase to describe the process of telling a traumatised man who he is, where he is, what he is.
    “No, Matthew. I will give him the necessary information.”
    “Decision noted.”
    She looked down at Pushkin. With an effort, he focussed on her face.
    “You are Alexei Pushkin,” she said quietly, “and there is no need for anxiety. You are with friends and you are being looked after expertly. You have just emerged from suspended animation. You are in the star-ship Santa Maria , which has touched down safely on the planet Tantalus. You are the engineer in a team of Expendables whose task is to prove Tantalus fit for human colonisation. The team consists of seven men and women, and six robots. Do you wish to ask any questions?”
    He was silent for a while, making a great effort to concentrate. Finally he said: “Who betrayed me?”
    Lieutenant Smith gazed at him intently. “What was there to betray?”
    He gave a dreadful laugh. “Do you think I am entirely stupid.” Then he fainted. The pulse became weak.
    Lieutenant Smith said: “I will use adrenalin.” Matthew was already filling the hypodermic syringe.
    “Decision noted,” he said with what seemed the merest hint of sarcasm.
    Lieutenant Smith attended to her patient.
    Meanwhile, Conrad and Khelad were on the nav deck, sitting gazing at the screens hooked in to the external vid cameras. Occasionally one or other of them got up, stretched, walked about, took a look through the observation panel.
    The two robots outside the vessel had already completed their one thousand metre search. They had discovered no large animal life-forms—which was not surprising. When the Santa Maria came roaring out of the sky, the shattering noise of its touch-down would have driven all intelligent life-forms away at a great rate of knots.
    Now, the robots had been instructed to construct a perimeter defence system at a radius of one hundred metres from the vessel. It consisted of steel net, supported by light angle-girders driven into the ground. The fence was to be linked by a step-up transformer to the Santa Maria’s generator. The fence would carry one thousand volts at low amperage. That would be sufficient power, thought Conrad, to discourage any but the most dedicated intruders.
    On the screens, he checked the progress of the robots. It looked as if they would have the fence complete before darkness fell.
    Khelad was pacing up and down nervously. Eventually he spoke: “Commander, I am not your saboteur. I cannot prove it, but it is so. I, too, want Tantalus for mankind. You must believe me.”
    Conrad did not take his gaze from the screens. Khelad’s voice sounded very tight, he noted. That was good. Stress might make him careless.
    “Ahmed, I am very glad that you say—with apparent conviction—that you are not a saboteur and that you want to prove Tantalus. Alas, it is my duty neither to believe you nor disbelieve you. You understand my position?”
    “I do, sir.”
    “Good. Maybe we shall find the saboteur, maybe not. Maybe there is no saboteur. But, for the time being, all of the new recruits remain suspect.”
    “That is clearly necessary,” conceded Khelad. “But as I am aware of my own innocence, I am in a better position than you, Commander. I can narrow the suspects down to two.”
    Conrad raised an eyebrow. “Three, surely? Assuming, of course, your own innocence.”
    “No, two. I have been thinking very carefully about Ruth Zonis. She had done her best to “provoke me. If she were the saboteur, she would not do that. She would not wish to