Angry curses whipped through the night and the field seemed to tilt as the guards came racing toward him. Far off in the darkness a siren wailed.
Langford suddenly realized that he was becoming light-headed from too much oxygen intake; his head was filled with a dull roaring, and seemed to be expanding. It was filled with flashing lights as well as sound, and was leaving his shoulders as he ran.
He had a sudden impulse to laugh and shout, to whoop at how ridiculous it was. His head had left his shoulders and was spinning about in the air. But before he could grasp the tube which was flooding his brain with hilarity, armed guards were all about him, raising their weapons to cover him and shouting at him to raise his arms.
Unfortunately he couldn't seem to move his arms. When he made the effort he went plunging and skidding over the ramp with running figures on both sides of him. He was skating, cutting capers on ice. Fantastic and incredible capers. Then the ice was inside his skull, swelling up thick; his heels were together when the lights in his head went out.
When the lights came on again Langford found himself stumbling forward into a blank-walled room with a steady pressure at his back. At first he thought the room was a cell, but when his vision adjusted itself to the glare he saw that he was facing a seated man whose head seemed to be dancing in the air.
"Here he is, Commander!" a harsh voice said. "He blacked out, but that didn't stop him from putting up a terrific fight!"
Langford had no recollection of putting up a fight, but the guard's jaw was bruised and swollen, which seemed to indicate that a struggle had taken place. A massive desk swam into view and the head of the seated man settled down on his shoulders.
Langford blinked. Facing him in the cold light was the supreme commander of the Solar Patrol, a thin, hollow-cheeked man of fifty whose eyes behind narrowed lids glittered as cold as glass.
Commander Gurney's immobility was not unlike the roll of thunder in a vacuum. There was sound and fury to it, and yet not a muscle of his face moved as he dismissed the guard with a curt nod, and waited for the massive door behind Langford to clang shut.