"Damned if I know. You fellows had me scared to death. From what you said, I thought he must have pinched the deadly top secret code and my personal address book to boot!"
"Simmons!" shouted the deeper voice. "Are you getting this? Are you making a tape for Terra? Oh ... right out, eh? Scrambled, I hope—it's not the kind of thing to publicize to the galaxy."
The mechanical voice boomed in the background. Gerson paid it no attention.
He felt the doctor's hands touching the old injections and heard the man swearing. Whoever was holding his left arm was actually squeezing and stroking his hand. The taste of failure was in his mouth.
"That's what they must have started with," said the doctor. "In the end, they put an awful mental twist into him, poor guy."
"I told you they were up to something," said the dark blur. "Those little bastards had big ideas, but they won't catch us napping with any more spies, conditioned or not! Now maybe they'll read my reports on Terra."
Gerson opened his mouth to breath better. He rolled his head from side to side on the hard floor. Somewhere deep inside him, a little, silent voice was crying, frightened. He had failed and there would be no other chance.
The little voice took leave of its fear to laugh. They had not let him remember how to read.
And so he died, a tall, battered Terran lying on a hard floor and grinning faintly up at the men who had helped him die.