The passage leading past his quarters was empty and quiet. Troy remained behind a corner for a minute or two listening. If Dr. Rojas had reported his failure to arrive at Room 72, the Tareegs must also have learned by now that he had left the station, and the last place they would think of hunting for him was here. But somebody--Hammerhead or human stooge--might be in his rooms, making a second and more thorough investigation there. * * * * * Everything remained still. Troy came quietly out into the passage, went down it to the tool room next to his quarters, opened the door, taking the gun from his pocket, and slipped inside. With the door locked, he stood still a moment, then turned on the lights. A glance around showed that nobody was lurking for him here. He darkened the room again, crossed it, removed the floor section over the tunnel entrance and slipped down into the tunnel. Working by touch, he pulled the floor section back across the opening, snapped it into place and started up the familiar narrow passage he had cut through the desert rock. He couldn't have said exactly what warned him. It might have been the tiny click of a black-light beam going on. But he knew suddenly that something alive and breathing stood farther up the passage waiting for him, and the gun came quickly from his pocket again. His forehead was struck with almost paralyzing force. Stungun ... they wanted him alive. Troy found himself on his knees, dizzy and sick, while a voice yelled at him. _Human_, he thought, with a blaze of hatred beyond anything he'd ever felt for the Tareegs. _Traitor human!_ The gun, still somehow in his hand, snarled its answer. Then the stungun found him again, in three quick, hammering blows, and consciousness was gone. * * * * * There came presently an extended period of foggy, groping thoughts interspersed with sleep and vivid nightmares. After a time, Troy was aware that he was in a section of the sick bay on the _Atlas_, and that the great carrier was in interstellar flight. So the operation on Cassa One was over. He wondered how long he had been knocked out. Days perhaps. It was the shrill, rapid-fire voice of a Tareeg which had first jolted him back into partial awareness. For confused seconds, Troy thought the creature was addressing him; then came the click of a speaker and the sounds ended, and he realized he had heard the Tareeg's voice over the ship's intercom system. A little later, it occurred to him that it had been using its own language and therefore could not have been speaking to him. During that first muddled period, Troy knew now and then that he was still almost completely paralyzed. Gradually, very gradually, his mind began to clear and the intervals of sleep which always ended with terrifying nightmares grew shorter. Simultaneously he found he was acquiring a limited ability to move. And that, too, increased.