The shocked Martie stumbled back.
But it didn't kill. Sadists in the experimental wards wanted every organism for their grisly research.
"Oh, Karl, you shouldn't ought to have done that," groaned Larson as he lifted the chain another Martie was trying to lower around his thick neck. Larson wrapped it around the Martian's purple-veined head instead, and with considerable force. Then a heavy arm slashed like a huge whip, thudded across Larson's flat nose. Blood spattered as the little man slumped, groaning, to his knees.
Venard was struggling in blind, hating helplessness with a number of arms that had encircled him like cable coils. And after that, as the line shuffled along, the chains were cold as space around his neck. And the thudding of the leathery arms flailing his back burned deeper than any Martie knew.
But against his side, in a little plastic pouch, the memory-crystal nestled. It was a comfortable feeling, the memory-crystal gave him. A comfortable chilling sensation, both warm and cold. Like an acrostic sonnet to death.
II
They were chained to a wall like dumb, dangerous beasts, though such a precaution appeared pitifully unnecessary. At frequent intervals, a contingent of Martian sycophants entered the narrow but high corridor and took a varied number of human slaves through a huge oval door. A door that had once been a gateway of learning into worlds devoted to peace and progressive research. This great structure, now in ruins from the Solar War between Mars and the rest of the System (except the world of the enigmatic Jovians who had remained neutral) had once been known as World Tech. Now it was a huge torture chamber made more hideous because of its modern scientific equipment used for such savage, barbaric research.
There was a terrible kind of silence between these episodes of the opening of the door, except for the half-crazed breathing of resigned humans. But when the oval door opened, screams came out. There were dim, quick impressions of steam and odors. And of shadows that seemed only partly human now, writhing on a wall.