Shrugging out of his grasp, she rose and turned to him, "I wouldn't miss the pleasure of seeing you all die for all the Sunbursts on Mars."
She strode away at a faster pace than before.
It was about six hours after they had been on the way that Fatso stopped and began to yell. "Damn dust. Grinding right into my guts. Gotta scratch." He ripped and tore at his clothes until his stomach was bare. With a look of unutterable satisfaction, he began to itch and dig.
The SWOOOOSH could hardly be picked up. There was a long shadow; then a scream from Fatso. The Sand Vulture's tail came out of his belly red. Then the Vulture was away; circling high and out of range.
Blindly Rick pulled his gun and fired. Fast as his trigger finger was, the poison was faster. By the third shot Fatso began to scream. His voice rose up the scale of torture; bursting occasionally in a paean of agony. And as he screamed, he lay on the ground writhing. Before their eyes, his stomach began to bulge and turn purple from the poison. His eyes rolled up into his head. And the moans began to dribble from his lips like the litany of an insane chorus.
"I can't stand it," Jocco shouted. "How long will it last?"
"Not long enough," Leeda answered, her voice brittle with satisfaction. "Only about ten hours. And in that time he will become mindless, an animal begging for death; then finally, he'll just grovel there moaning, and moaning, and moaning."
"You wanted this to happen to him," Jocco accused.
Leeda looked at him. "And I hope the same for you—only worse."
"Stop it, you two," Rick commanded. "It's bad enough this way. The living must live. He is dead and he doesn't know it. Why let him suffer?"