But now they were gone. And Hanlon was to be the next victim ... and he had no idea who, when, what, where, or why.
For long minutes he sat, shaking with dread, his mind a chaos of nothingness but a swirling, roiling, panic fear.
This was far, far different from that terrible fear he had known back on the Hellene when he had first realized he was tangling with trained, unprincipled and viciously-conscienceless killers. Or the time he had been chained in the Prime Minister's dungeon on Simonides. For then he had been facing known problems. This one was totally unknown ... and man has always felt far more fear of the terrors he cannot see, than of those he can face.
"Blast back," he thought determinedly, ashamed of his fear and resolved to conquer it, "I got through those other troubles all right in the end. How do I know I won't with this? At least, I can be a man, not a cry-baby, especially before I'm actually in danger."
It was sorry advice, and he knew it, but it was just enough at the moment to help him pull himself together.
"So maybe they can kill me ... after torturing me. So what? I don't expect to live forever, and I knew when I got into this service that it was dangerous. After all, I could get killed any minute just performing routine Corps duties—or if I'd remained a civilian, at my daily job, or walking the streets of Terra."
By main force of will and character, Hanlon forced the fear back and away from the surface of his mind. He concentrated on the problem at hand:
How to find where his father was held captive.
Hooper had apparently been running for about two hours when Hanlon first discovered him, his mind had told. All right, where's that map of Stearra and vicinity he had bought. Ah, there on the table. Let's see now, a man in Hooper's condition could run maybe ten or twelve miles in that time, since his mental terror would have overcome physical fatigue until his muscles could absolutely obey no longer.
All right, circle this point with a ring with a twelve-mile radius ... so.