"Mannie couldn't stand the pain, he died," Hooper's thought was strangely calm and apparently heartless—which Hanlon knew could not be the man's true feelings, for Hooper and Manning had been close friends of long standing.
"What kind of pain? Who was hurting him?" Hanlon demanded, sick with dread. "Were all of you being tortured? Was dad?" Oh, God, why couldn't he get in there and read the true answers?
As best he could figure it out, they had never seen their captor, but had felt his mind probing theirs, asking questions, interrogating them—in the Estrellan language. Whoever was doing it apparently did not intend it to be torture, for when Manning died the other two received a curiously surprised yet apologetic thought, "Your nerve sensitivity is greater than ours. It was not intended to force this entity's life-force out of physical embodiment. Greater care shall be used in the future."
"Tell me more about dad," Hanlon commanded, agonizedly. "Where is he held? Who has him? What's it all about?"
But the dazed Hooper relapsed back to the only words he seemed able to say aloud, "Gotta run; gotta get away."
"But you're safe here, Curt. No one's following you, and I won't let anyone or anything hurt you. Relax."
"Gotta run; gotta get away." And so powerful was the urge that the supine body twitched restlessly, as it began breaking out of that paralysis Hanlon had imposed on it.
Frantically, Hanlon continued his mind-scanning, asking innumerable questions that he hoped would penetrate the other's consciousness and force his mind to think along the lines Hanlon wanted to know.
And slowly, sketchily, he began to piece together a picture of sorts—like a jigsaw puzzle of which many of the pieces were missing.
The three S S men had been brought together in some little stone building. There the unknown, whom they never saw nor heard, had interrogated them mentally, a process that was extremely painful in a way that Hooper could not, or did not, specify, save that his mind seemed to wince and recoil from any thought of the method, despite Hanlon's utmost attempts to learn it.