THE COSMIC COMPUTER

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women and children being pushed to the rear and the men gathering up
clubs and other chance weapons. By the time the jeep grounded, the men
in the pit were standing defensively in front of the women and children.

They were all dirty and ragged; the men were unshaven. There was a tall
man with a grizzled beard, in greasy coveralls; another man with a black
beard and an old Space Navy uniform, his head bandaged with a dirty and
blood-caked rag; another in the same uniform, wearing a cap on which the
Terran Federation insignia had been replaced by the emblem of
Transcontinent & Overseas Shiplines and the words CHIEF ENGINEER. And
beside the tall man with the gray beard, was a girl in baggy trousers
and a torn smock. Like the others, she was dirty, but in spite of the
rags and filth, Conn saw that she was beautiful. Black hair, dark eyes,
an impudently tilted nose.

They all looked at him in hostility that gradually changed to perplexity
and then hope.