But he could still somehow feel the animal presence of his torturers, ringed tight around him yet in the tiny, glaring cubicle of polished steel; there was new pain in his shattered face, and he knew it was the freezing carbon dioxide spray designed to shock him back to full consciousness. But now it was only a new pain.
There was the voice of Haine.
"Hurry up, get him around. If he cashes in before we get anything out of him Stine'll blow a connection. That's a man who hates to lose on an investment."
"Didn't invest much. Didn't risk much either, if you ask me. What else was that broken down tank good for anyway? I say kill the—"
"Get him around and shut up."
The freezing pain again. But the darkness held.
New sounds. Stine.
"What have you been trying to do, kill him outright? How much have you gotten?"
"Nothing yet, sir. He's either the craziest man in the universe or the toughest. Or else he doesn't know anything."
"Nonsense! The things this man knows can put us all in the shade, and don't you forget it! But if we don't find out just how much his people still know—or don't know—it'll be your necks as well as mine! They realize there's somebody else besides themselves in Space, now."