But he might as well have been pounding a sack of meal. The body sagged beneath the blows, and became bloody and discolored, but no movement—no conscious movement—did it make.
"That will do, Panek," His Highness finally commanded. "That does no good. This I cannot understand, but I do know there is ... uh ... something most peculiar here. It is almost as though ...", he paused and frowned again. "But that is ridiculous!"
"What's ridiculous, Boss, what is?"
"It is almost as though there was ... uh ... no mind left in the body," His Highness said slowly. Then, abruptly, "Are you sure that was truth-serum in that hypodermic?"
"You fixed it yourself, Boss."
His Highness wheeled suddenly, rudely awakened from his thinking by the loud shoo-ing noise one of the guards was making. He was astonished to see the man making vain motions toward a pigeon whose head was sticking through, the ventilator vanes.
But the bird didn't leave.
"Stop it!" the Leader commanded impatiently. "We've more import ..."
He checked himself, and turned back to stare wonderingly at the bird, which peered back at him with apparently unfrightened, beady eyes, turning its head to first one side and then the other, as though better to see all that was going on.
"That's peculiar," His Highness said thoughtfully. "I never saw a bird act like that before. Hmmm, I wonder?... But no, that's absurd."