He pressed his hands against a wall. Hank, some of the color draining from his face, did the same. "See?" Murphy inquired. "There are no vibrations. We're supposed to be in outer space, headed for Earth. There should be vibrations!"
He hit the wall with his fist.
He hit it harder.
The wall didn't sound right.
Taking his bayonet, he jabbed the wall. The blade cut through a thin layer of metal—a layer of metal no thicker than a sixteenth of an inch.
Laughing wildly, he cut a large rectangle; the section clattered to the floor, exposing a layer of wood. He kicked at the wood—dry, crumbling wood that gave way beneath his foot.
He climbed through the opening.
Hank followed him.
Colonel Donovan studied the papers before him with blank eyes. Lately the Project had started to annoy his conscience, and the fact that it was a logical move did not lessen the annoyance. There at Fort Meade, he had faced the problem: How can you keep men from giving information when captured? It had been a vital problem. Without a solution, the Antarians could have learned countless military secrets and ultimately won the war. Death had seemed the only solution, but it had not seemed right to deliberately murder their own men. He had asked himself: How can you kill a man without killing him? And he had come up with the answer: Drive him insane.