began again. This time, Jon drank the bitter
liquid slowly, trying to figure out what it was. It had a familiar,
tantalizing taste but he couldn't quite put a taste-finger on it.

His belly said he was hungry. He glanced at his chronometer. Only 20
days left before the SP ship arrived.

Would this torture--he chuckled--last until then? But he was growing
more and more conscious that his belly was screaming for hunger. The
liquid had taken the edge off his thirst.

It was on the fifth day of his torture that Jon Karyl decided that he
was going to get something to eat or perish in the attempt.

The cylinder sat passively in its niche in the circle. A dozen
Steel-Blues were watching as Jon put on his helmet and unsheathed his
stubray.

They merely watched as he pressed the stubray's firing stud. Invisible
rays licked out of the bulbous muzzle of the pistol. The plastic
splintered.

Jon was out of his goldfish bowl and striding toward his own igloo
adjacent to the service station when a Steel-Blue accosted him.

"Out of my way," grunted Jon, waving the stubray. "I'm hungry."

"I'm the first Steel-Blue you met," said the creature who barred his
way. "Go back to your torture."

"But I'm so hungry I'll chew off one of your tentacles and eat it
without seasoning."

"Eat?" The Steel-Blue sounded puzzled.

"I want to refuel. I've got to have food to keep my engine going."

Steel-Blue chuckled. "So the hemlock, as you call it, is beginning to
affect you at last? Back to the torture room."

"Like R-dust," Jon growled. He pressed the firing stud on the stubray
gun. One of Steel-Blue's tentacles broke off and fell to the rocky
sward.

Steel-Blue jerked out the box he'd used once before. A tentacle danced
over it.

Abruptly Jon found himself standing on a pinnacle of rock. Steel-Blue
had cut a swath around him 15 feet deep and five feet wide.

"Back to the room," Steel-Blue commanded.

Jon resheathed the stubray pistol, shrugged non-committally and leaped
the trench. He walked slowly back and reentered the torture chamber.

The Steel-Blues rapidly repaired the damage he'd done.

As he watched them, Jon was still curious, but he was getting mad
underneath at the cold egoism of the Steel-Blues.

By the shimmering clouds of Earth, by her green fields, and dark
forests, he'd stay alive to warn the SP ship.

Yes, he'd stay alive till then. And send the story of the Steel-Blues'
corrosive acid to it. Then hundreds