Haendl sat down next to him on the warm, quivering floor and began
fitting cartridges into a clip.
"We're fighting," he explained gleefully. "Tropile did it all. You've
been shanghaied and so have all the rest of us. Tropile's alive! He's
part of the Pyramid communications network--don't ask me how. But he's
there and he has been hauling men and weapons and God knows what all up
from Earth--you're on the binary planet now, you know--and we're going
to bust things up so the Pyramids will _never_ be able to put them back
together again. Understand? Well, it doesn't matter if you don't. All
you have to understand is that when I tell you to shoot this gun, you
shoot."
Numbly, Citizen Germyn took the unfamiliar stock and barrel into his
hands. Muscles he had forgotten he owned straightened the limp curve of
his back, squared his shoulders and thrust out his chest.
It had been many generations since any of Citizen Germyn's people had
known the feeling of being an Armed Man.
A naked woman with wild hair and a full, soft figure came toward them,
jiggling in a way that agonized Citizen Germyn. He dropped his eyes to
his gun and kept them there.
She cried: "Orders from Tropile! We've got to form a party and blow
something up."