resistance entirely, knowing that they would revolt violently once the cargo was revealed. Every other Son of Earth has been broken up for organ stock. Polly and the four who escaped in the car hidden under the residence are the only surviving rebels on Plateau. Meanwhile, Matt and Laney are able to enter the facility with no real problem. Matt tricks Castro into leading him to where they are keeping Polly, and Matt sets her free. However, this turns out to be a mistake: Implementation moved from psychological interrogation to sensory deprivation, and she is now insane. He makes love to her and in so doing restores her ability to function. But when she learns of their location, she becomes determined to avenge the genocide of the Sons of Earth. She flees Matt, intending to detonate the nuclear reactor on one of the slowboats, to destroy the Hospital and kill as many Crew as she possibly can. She is unable to reach the reactor and instead settles for the ship's long-defunct control room. She then ignites the ship's landing motors; this severely damages the Hospital, kills many of the crew, and thrusts the ship off the "void edge" to its destruction. Matt manages to jump from the ship before she does so. Millard Parlette assumes control of the Crew in the aftermath. However, the Colonists have won the war, as the Sons of Earth – though only numbering four – have claimed control of the most powerful weapon on Plateau: Matt Keller. If the Crew does not restructure Plateau's laws along cosmopolitan lines, Keller will use his psychic power to act as an unstoppable assassin. Keller accepts this, but demands a position of power among the rebels. And he has just discovered a new wrinkle in his power. Not only can he compel someone to lose focus on him, he can compel someone to intensify that focus, putting them in a hypnotic trance, which by implication makes him the true master of Plateau. As the story began with a robot ramship in flight, it ends with another ramship headed from Earth to the human colony known as 'We Made It' (in the Procyon system) with the same discovery. This ship is observed by alien Outsiders, who follow it in hopes of selling faster than light technology to the locals. This sale will lead to the advanced multi-species society portrayed in