Bill Thihling, the rocketjet man, a compact sturdy pocketsized fellow about Brave's age--thirty-six or -seven--said, "Now let's have some action. Let's _do_ something." "First thing we do is swallow some antigues," said Brave, going into the kitchen for the bottle. Antigues were anti-fatigue tablets, on which a man could keep fresh and intelligent for seventy-two hours without sleep. "I have an idea that sleep will be a myth and a vagrant memory for us before too long." "And then," said Don Mariner, "we catch one of the supermen and beat some truth out of him." Alan laughed hollowly, reminding himself of a character out of _MacBeth_. "Beat it out of him? Torture a being that doesn't feel pain?" "Kill him, then," urged Rob Pope. "It's simple bloodthirst, but we've got to make a beginning. Perhaps it'll make his cousins fret a little. Bring 'em into the open." "We don't even know they can be killed. A thousand-pound 'sword' couldn't faze the pilot of that disk. What could _we_ do?" "We can try! It's no good our arguing back and forth; we haven't any real data. The only thing to do is kidnap one of _them_, see what makes him tick, and then do our planning." "I'm for that," said Don. "Which one shall we take?" "The welder's vanished, and we can't very well torture, or try to torture, Win Gilmore. Too rough on Alan. Let's have in the pilot of the wrecked disk." "He wouldn't come here if we called him: too suspicious a request," said Alan. "Kidnapping's the thing." "Pope and I can handle that," said Thihling. "Anyone know his name?" "Erin Grady," said Don Mariner. "Judas, isn't that a handle!" Rob Pope, a big rangy man built in the style of a woodsrunner out of early America, said, "Ho for Erin Grady, then. And if he tries any of his damn superman's hypnosis, I'll fling it in his own teeth. I know a trick or two in that line myself." The two of them left the house. Brave began to mix three stiff highballs, and Don Mariner took out a harmonica and played Bach, with only a few sour notes per bar. Alan picked up the cat Unquote and fondled her. But his thoughts were grim. All he could see was a beautiful girl who he longed to hold in his arms. A beautiful girl with a cigarette burn on her arm. A girl who felt no pain. Win.... CHAPTER VI They brought in Erin Grady, dressed in brown civilian clothes and wearing an expression of curiosity on his lean well-proportioned face and in eyes that were accustomed to peering into measureless deeps of the sky. "How'd you get him?" asked Brave. "Lied like a trooper," said Pope, and the pilot turned half-angry, half-amused blue eyes on him. Brave gestured to a straight-backed chair. "Please sit there, Mr. Grady." The pilot did so without question. "Forgive this wire," Brave went on, looping the heavy coils around the man's chest and arms, "but we don't think rope would hold you."