"Is he dead, Boss, is he?" he heard Panek's anxious cry.
His Highness felt the pulse in Hanlon's wrist and the one in his throat. "No, he's still alive."
The man stood there in deep thought, his forehead creased with a frown of concentration. "There's something peculiarly wrong here," the Leader finally said aloud. "Something very wrong and very strange. This isn't an ordinary fainting spell. It's ... uh ... beyond my previous experience."
He straightened and addressed Hanlon's body once more. "Can you still hear me, George Hanlon?"
There was no answer, no slightest indication that his words were heard. He reached forward and lifted the body into a more upright position in the chair. "Answer me, George Hanlon. Do you hear me? I command you to tell me, are you a Corpsman?"
Still no answer, no twitch of muscle, no movement of awareness. He shook the body a little, and raised his voice still more.
"I demand an answer, George Hanlon! The truth drug must make you speak!"
But only silence, and when he let go of the body it fell backward into the chair, and the head lolled forward as though the neck was broken.
"Let me work on him, Boss," Panek pleaded. "Let me give him a going over, let me."
Barely waiting to see that His Highness did not forbid it, the thug raised a short, ugly piece of rubber hose, and struck the unresisting body again and again—across the face, over the top and back of the head, vicious blows at the ribs and even in the groin.