"How?" he whispered.
"I don't know ... Falken!" She caught him with thin painful fingers. "They're driving you down on Mercury. Why not trick them? Why not go—beyond?"
He stared at her. Even he would never have thought of that. Beyond the orbit of Mercury there was only death.
Avery leaped to his feet. For a startled instant Falken's brain cleared, and he saw the trapped, wild terror in Avery's face.
"We'd die," said Avery hoarsely. "The heat...."
Sheila faced him. "We'll die anyway, unless you want Psycho-Change. Why not try it, Eric? Their instruments won't work close to the Sun. They may even be afraid to follow."
The wiry, febrile force of her beat at them. "Try, Eric. We have nothing to lose."
Paul Avery stared from one to the other of them and then to the red lights that were ships. Abruptly he sank down on the edge of his bunk and dropped his broad, fair head in his hands. Falken saw the cords like drawn harp-strings on the backs of them.
"I ... can't," whispered Falken. The command to sleep was once more a vast shout in his brain. "I can't think."
"You must!" said Sheila. "If you sleep, we'll be taken. You won't be able to kill yourself. They'll pick your brain empty. Then they'll Hiltonize you with the Psycho-Adjuster.