He looked at the cylinder, then at the Steel-Blues crowding around the plastic igloo. He waved the glass at the audience. "To Earth, ever triumphant," he toasted. Then he drained the glass at a gulp. Its taste was bitter, and he felt hot prickles jab at his scalp. It was like eating very hot peppers. His eyes filled with tears. He coughed as the stuff went down. But he was still alive, he thought in amazement. He'd drunk the hemlock and was still alive. The reaction set in quickly. He hadn't known until then how tense he'd been. Now with the torture ordeal over, he relaxed. He laid down on the pallet and went to sleep. There was one lone Steel-Blue watching him when he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and sat up. He vanished almost instantly. He, or another like him, returned immediately accompanied by a half-dozen others, including the multi-tentacled creature known as No. 1. One said, "You are alive." The thought registered amazement. "When you lost consciousness, we thought you had"--there was a hesitation--"as you say, died." "No," Jon Karyl said. "I didn't die. I was just plain dead-beat so I went to sleep." The Steel-Blues apparently didn't understand. "Good it is that you live. The torture will continue," spoke No. 1 before loping away. The cylinder business 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.