The copter came, it dropped food and water, and it went away. It came, dropped food and water, and went away. Once a water-bag burst when dropped. They lost nearly half a week's water supply. Before the copter came again they'd gone two days without drinking.

There were other incidents, of course. The dried seaweed they slept on turned to powdery trash. They got more seaweed hauling long kelp-like strands of it ashore from where it clung to the island's submerged rocks. Ganti mentioned that they must do it right after the copter came, so there would be no sign of enterprise to be seen from aloft. The seaweed had long, flexible stems of which no use whatever could be made. When it dried, it became stiff and brittle but without strength.

Once Ganti abruptly began to talk of his youth. As if he were examining something he'd never noticed before, he told of the incredible conditioning-education of the young members of his race. They learned that they must never make a mistake. Never! It did not matter if they were unskilled or inefficient. It did not matter if they accomplished nothing. There was no penalty for anything but making mistakes or differing from officials who could not make mistakes.

So Thrid younglings were trained not to think; not to have any opinion about anything; only to repeat what nobody questioned; only to do what they were told by authority. It occurred to Jorgenson that on a planet with such a population, a skeptic could make a great deal of confusion.

Then, another time, Jorgenson decided to make use of the weathering cord which had been cut from the copter when he was landed. He cut off a part of it with a sharp-edged fragment of stone from the pile some former prisoner on the island had made. He unravelled the twisted fibers. Then he ground fishhooks from shells attached to the island's rocky walls just below water-line. After that they fished. Sometimes they even caught something to eat. But they never fished when the copter was due.

Jorgenson found that a fish-fillet, strongly squeezed and wrung like a wet cloth, would yield a drinkable liquid which was not salt and would substitute for water. And this was a reason to make a string bag in which caught fish could be let back into the sea so they were there when wanted but could not escape.

They had used it for weeks when he saw Ganti, carrying it to place it where they left it overboard, swinging it idly back and forth as he walked.

If Jorgenson had been only a businessman, it would have had no particular meaning. But he was also a person, filled with hatred of the Thrid who had condemned him for life to this small island. He saw the swinging of the fish. It gave him an idea.

He did not speak at all during all the rest of that day. He was thinking. The matter needed much thought. Ganti left him alone.

But by sunset he'd worked it out. While they watched Thrid's red sun sink below the horizon, Jorgenson said thoughtfully:

"There is a way to escape, Ganti."

"On what? In what?" demanded Ganti.

"In the helicopter that feeds us," said Jorgenson.

"It never lands," said Ganti practically.

"We can make it land," said Jorgenson. Thrid weren't allowed to make mistakes; he could make it a mistake not to land.

"The crew is armed," said Ganti. "There are three of them."

"They've only knives and scimitars," said Jorgenson. "They don't count. We can make better weapons than they have."

Ganti looked skeptical. Jorgenson explained. He had to demonstrate crudely. The whole idea was novel to Ganti, but the Thrid were smart. Presently he grasped it. He said:

"I see the theory. If we can make it work, all right. But how do we make the copter land?"

Jorgenson realized that they talked oddly. They spoke with leisurely lack of haste, with the lack of hope normal to prisoners to whom escape is impossible, even when they talk about escape. They could have been discussing a matter that would not affect either of them. But Jorgenson quivered inside. He hoped.

"We'll try it," said Ganti detachedly, when he'd explained again. "If it fails, they'll only stop giving us food and water."

That, of course, did not seem either to him or Jorgenson a reason to hesitate to try what Jorgenson had planned.

It was not at all a direct and forthright scheme. It began with the untwisting of more of the rope that had lowered Jorgenson............