"Sure," said Nolan tonelessly. "If you want my vote, it's for now. Get it over with."
Woller nodded. "That would be much pleasanter for you. I think I'll save you." He nodded slowly. Then, to the mate, "Take him below!"
Back down the corridor, the mocking stars still bright through the crystal underfoot. Back and down, till they came to the gray room, where the pulsing, whining generators spun their web of anti-gravitational power.
"We don't have a brig," the mate apologized. "But I think this will hold you in."
Eyes warily on Nolan, he circled him and opened a round metal door. It was an unused storeroom, bare except for rows of vacant metal shelves.
"In you go," said the Venusian, and Nolan complied. The door slammed behind him and was bolted.
There was a whine in the air, he noticed. The singing of the grav-generators. It was not unpleasant ... at least, not unbearable, he corrected himself. But how it persisted! It was constant as the keening of a jammed frequency-modulator, high as the wail of a banshee.
He let his aching body slip to the floor, lay there without even trying to think. He raised his head for a searching second, but there was nothing to see. Bare walls, bare shelves.
He was helpless. His chance might come when the second let him out. Till then, he would sleep.
When had he slept last? Save for the few minutes of unconsciousness, it was easily thirty hours. He pillowed his head on his arm....