"I'm sorry, Jack. It's my fault. I was so sure that was the vulnerable point."
Jack's pain-filled eyes looked down on his broken arms, then fastened on Sean.
"I wouldn't mind so much," Jack said through tight lips, "if it had worked." Then he looked away.
Sean turned to Mike and Marcia. Mike was sitting up now, shaking his head dazedly.
He saw Sean.
Mike said just one word before he stood up and walked away with Marcia.
The word was: "Satisfied?"
For the rest of the trip, Sean McKenna had plenty of room to stretch his body out. As if by pre-arranged signal, he was given a wide berth, and those Earth people near him constantly tried to keep their backs to him.
Impassively, the Kraks had come, and when they left, the body of Bill Hawkins went with them, leaving only that dark dried stain on the prison deck as a reminder. Perhaps it hadn't been deliberate, but the prisoners had made a lane through so that each time Sean McKenna lifted his harried green eyes he saw the spot where Hawkins had died.
Hawkins' death twisted at Sean's heart, but it was always overshadowed by his conviction that the Kraks were vulnerable. Sean's mind probed, trying to find the answer to why Klash, the huge Krak, had flinched when Sean's fists had struck him.