The policeman's laugh was brutal, explosive. "There is always a choice. You can do as you're told or be dragged in screaming."
Torry grimaced. "Much more of this and I'll be dragged out screaming."
The prisoner-escapees, what was left of them, were an unpleasant sight. Explosive decompression in airless space does curious things to men's bodies. Blood boils in the veins and flesh bursts from internal pressures. Also, there are heat-cold curiosities, with half a body burnt raw on the sunward side, and the rest frozen iron-hard with a lacy overlay of snowflake patterns in red.
Holden was still alive, by a miracle. Forward compartments had held together when the makeshift spacer blew its flimsy self inside out. He was alive but not talking. They brought the bulging mass of pulped, purple flesh back to Mars and dumped it in a basket. There was no face, no eyes, no recognizable hands or feet. For the time that remained to him, Holden would be less than a functioning animal, fed by tube, cared for by people he could not see or hear, living a precarious existence on the raw, black fringe of life. Holden was through talking. And for any practical purpose, through living.
"Too bad," said Grannar, looking into the basket. "He could have told us about a lot of things ... if he'd wanted to."
"Holden was a nice guy before he knew Bart Roper," Torry snapped angrily.
"You sound pretty bitter about Roper."
"I should be. I know him better than you do. I am bitter about Roper."
"Because of Holden?" pressed Grannar.
"Not ... Holden. But it might as easily have been me in that basket. Six years ago I was Roper's partner. I got out quickly when I found out some of his business methods. And I had very little he could steal from me then. A lot of people have a variety of good reasons to hate Roper. Just say that I'm one of them."