Occasionally a neighbor would come out of his house and scream "would you shut the act of sexual intercourse up???" Then several of the mercenaries would spray his lawn with bullets and jeer as he ran into the house.

I wondered why the Terran security forces didn't come. This morning I found out that their new policy is not to answer anymore calls from this street or, as the officer I spoke to from the payphone said, "we wouldn't have time to do a damn thing all day."

When the sun came up this morning the carnage was terrible. Poor dogs and cats lay all over the yard, cut down by the mercenaries during the night.

"Well," Bruce said as he gazed at the littered ground, "that should cut down on the barking, at least."