His head was lying flat on the floor and the girl was sitting next to him, her back toward him very close to his face. He stared at it for a long while without thinking. The pain in his head was enormous, and he was not used to pain, not any kind of pain. The whiskey men drank nowadays left no hangovers, and for a normal headache there were instantaneously acting pills, so Travis on the floor was unused to pain. And though he was by nature a courageous man it took him a while to be able to think at all, much less clearly. Eventually he realized that he was lying on a very hard floor. His arms and legs were tightly bound. He investigated the floor. It was brick. It was wet. The dark ceiling dripped water in the flickering light from some source beyond the girl. The brick, the dripping water, the girl, all combined to make it completely unbelievable. If it wasn't for the pain he would have rolled over and gone to sleep. But the pain. Yes the pain. He closed his eyes and lay still, hurting. When he opened his eyes again he was better. By jing, this was ridiculous. Not a full day yet on Mert and in addition to his other troubles, now this. He did not feel alarmed, only downright angry. This business of the flickering light and being tied hand and foot was too impossible to be dangerous. He grunted feebly at the back of the girl. "Ho," he said. "Now what in the sweet name of Billy H. Culpepper is this?" The girl turned and looked down at him. She swiveled around on her hips and a rag-bound foot kicked him unconcernedly in the side. For the first time he saw the other two men behind her. There were two of them. The look of them was ridiculous. The girl said something. It was a moment before he realized she was speaking in Mert, which he had to translate out of the Langkit behind his ear. "The scourge awakes," one of the men said. "A joy. It was my thought that in the conjunction was done perhaps murder." "Poot. One overworries. And if death comes to this one, observe, will the money be paid? Of a surety. But this is bizarre." "Truly bizarre," the girl nodded. Then to make her point, "also curious, unique, unusual. My thought: from what land he comes?" "The cloth is rare," one of the men said, "observe with tight eyes the object on his wrist. A many-symboled engine--" "_My_ engine," the girl said positively. She reached down for his watch. Travis jerked back. "Lay off there," he bawled in English, "you hipless--" The girl recoiled. He could not see her face but her tone was puzzled. "What language is this? He speaks with liquid." The larger of the two men arose and came over to him. "Speak again scourge. But first empty the mouth." Travis glared at the man's feet, which were wrapped in dirty cloth and smelt like the breezes blowing softly over fresh manure. "Speak again? Speak again? Untie my hands, you maggoty slob, and I'll speak your bloody--" he went on at great length, but the man ignored him.