What I actually saw, when I reached the doorway and stood there looking in, took me completely by surprise. It wasn't the way I'd pictured it at all. But it was just as unnerving, just as much of a threat to the safety of the ship and it startled me so I must have looked almost comic, standing there idiot-still. But there was nothing comic about what I saw. The woman I'd almost asked to go to Mars with me was staring straight at me, her hair still piled up high, a look of terrified appeal in her eyes. She wasn't alone. She was struggling furiously with a crewman I'd talked to a few times and neither liked nor disliked--a heavyset man with high cheekbones and pale blue eyes. He was gripping her savagely by the wrist and they were both backed up against one of the robot giants. Suddenly as I stared her head went back and a convulsive trembling seized her. She began to scream. 7 It was a christ-awful moment--for her and for me. For her because she had no right to be in the Chart Room, or even on the ship, as far as I knew, and there was a look on the crewman's face that chilled me to the core of my being. It went beyond the anger of a duty-obsessed man, outraged by her infringement of the regulations. It was a completely different kind of anger. There was a savage cruelty, a killing rage in his eyes, impossible to misinterpret. It was just as awful a moment for me, because I wasn't sure I could get to him before he broke her wrist or did something worse to her. I'd seen a woman kneed in the groin once, by just such an enraged human animal, and the memory of it had never left me. A strong man, turned maniacal, could kill with his hands in a matter of seconds. I'd seen that happen too, and the victim hadn't been a woman, but a man as powerful as the killer. I crossed the Chart Room in a running leap, grabbed him by the shoulders and swung him about, raining blows on him more or less at random. I just tried to hit him as hard as I could without caring much where the blows landed, so long as they resounded with a meaty smack where they would do the most good. My only aim was to stun and, if possible, cripple him in a terrible, punishing way, so that he'd release his grip on the wrist of the woman he'd been trying to hurt before she screamed again and her hand dangled with a sickening limpness, making me want to permanently demolish him in slow and painful stages. For a moment I was only sure of one thing. My fist had smashed very solidly into his face at least twice and drawn blood. I could see the gleam of blood on his jaw as he reeled back, and I was almost sure I'd heard his nose crack. There was nothing wrong with that, but it didn't satisfy me. I wanted to turn his face into quivering jelly. But most of all I was hoping, praying that she'd break free before I set about doing that, because a voice was screaming deep in my mind that if she couldn't he might still be capable of injuring her cruelly.