I gripped Lynton by the arm and fell back against the wall, tugging him around so that he was far enough behind me to give me a chance to grapple with Hard Eyes head-on, with complete freedom of movement. He made the mistake of coming at me too fast. It might not have been a mistake if he hadn't been so reckless with the thong, trying to lash me across the chest with it before he was sure of his balance. The sheer weight of the weapon carried him forward, straight past me, and it went swishing through the air without hitting anything. I made a grab for his wrist and before he could recover his balance I was twisting it relentlessly and slamming my fist against the side of his head. He sank to his knees and I kept right on hammering away at him, hitting him first on the right temple and then on the left and not even stopping to take the thong away from him. There was no need for me to relieve him of the thong, for he flattened out on the floor still holding on to it and passed out cold. It seemed only reasonable and just to let him keep it as a souvenir. I was out of breath and feeling a little dizzy, because when you hit anyone as hard as I'd hit Hard Eyes, not caring much whether I killed him or not, it takes a minute or two to recover. I still hadn't quite gotten my breath back when the door of Wendel's office slammed open and Wendel himself stood there, staring down at the guard with a look of consternation on his face. I became a little alarmed when I saw that Lynton had moved out from the wall and was making straight for him with his arm drawn back. Hell--that's an understatement. I became very much alarmed, because the one thing I didn't want was to have Wendel belted unconscious and laid out on the floor at the guard's side before I could have a talk with him. I got between them just in time, and I grabbed Wendel by the shoulders and hurled him back into his office and when he staggered a little and almost fell I grabbed hold of him for the second time, and slammed him down in the chair in front of his big, metal-topped desk. He looked up at me for a moment with a killing rage in his eyes, but I didn't give him a chance to get his breath back. For the barest instant, though, if he had been quick enough, he might have succeeded in getting to his feet and lashing out at me, for I saw something on the opposite side of the room that seemed almost too good to be true, and I took three full seconds out to stare at it. It was a big tele-communicator screen--just the kind of screen I had been sure I'd find somewhere in the plant, but hardly in Wendel's private office. The fact that Sherwood had one in his office was not quite so surprising, for Sherwood's custodianship of thermonuclear weapons had made him more communication-conscious.