Behind the desk sat a handsome man. Pale blue eyes that probed deeply, plump cheeks, thick blonde eyebrows, muscular shoulders. Heydrick had seen him before. Where? Oh, yes--the pieces clicked together. The Feyjak investigation. The man had testified against Ria Tarsen, reluctantly, the Visiphone News had commented. He had been Feyjak's assistant, Ria's friend. Thorsan drummed the desk with his fingers. "Heydrick, you've given us a lot of trouble. You probably want to know where you are. You're in the underground galleries below Level 1. We have our headquarters here. I am the head man of the Wildings." Heydrick's brain spun. He fought back the whirl and tried to think calmly. Below the lowest inhabited level of Canal City 4 were endless mazes of caverns, galleries and abandoned mine-shafts. Rumor said that bands of outlaws roamed among the savages, second and third generations of the outcast rebels who long-ago had been driven to the refuge of the city's ratholes. Banded together by their common hatreds, these outlaws had built up a strong organization known as the Wildings. There was some talk that numbers of them had infiltrated the City's government; men of dangerous ability, infinite cunning, and vicious philosophy, whose sole aim was the overthrow of the Government of Scientists. Heydrick's heart turned suddenly to ashes as he realized that Ria Tarsen must have been a Wilding. Surely no group would have gone to the trouble of instigating riots merely to rescue an outsider, however innocent. It was all clear now, painfully clear. Thorsan must have divined the nature of Heydrick's thoughts. He laughed harshly, then turned to a subordinate. "They're no use to us, either of them. The girl didn't know as much as I thought she did. Now they both know too much. We'll have to get rid of them. Put him in the cell with her while I figure out what to do with them." Hands reached out of the darkness and dragged Heydrick roughly to his feet. He was thrust along a winding gallery that he realized must be part of an old mine. They must have given him a full dose with the paralysis needle. He kept stumbling, and his legs moved stiffly. The group came to a halt before an old wooden-plank door. The room inside was damp, and smelled mouldy. It was evidently a chamber cut in the rock for storage of explosives. His captors thrust him inside. He bounced off a wall and fell heavily. The door bumped shut and a sound like a bar dropping in place came muffled through the planks. "Well, tough guy, how do _you_ like being pushed around?" A familiar voice came out of darkness. "Who is it?" he asked needlessly. "It's not your Aunt Sophie," the voice said acidly. "_You_ should kick. You have better company than I have." The two sat in moody silence for a while. "Are you all right?" the girl asked finally. "Still stiff," he answered. "You should know what that's like."