The scream was flung into complete silence. No echo of it came back to his ears. Blackness beat at him, flowed in over him, flowed through him. The blackness ransacked every nook and corner of his body. It probed to the bottom of his soul. It swallowed him whole. It dissected his consciousness, tore it to shreds, then yanked away even the shreds. He seemed to be falling into a black hole that had no end. Ronson did not know how long the blackness lasted. The first sense to come back was hearing. Somewhere near him he heard a grunt. Then the sense of feeling came back and he realized he was lying naked on sand. He didn't much want to open his eyes. Finally he forced them open. His vision was blurred and vague. When it cleared he saw the source of the grunt. The sound had come from Tal Bock, squatting on the sand near him. Tal Bock was also naked. Unlike Ronson, the millions of microscopic hands in the darkness had not left even a wrist watch on the Martian. "Happy--ah--wind time," Ronson said. Tal Bock grunted, but did not answer. "Where are we?" "Hell," Tal Bock said. He got up and walked into the shrubbery behind him. Ronson rose. He was shaky, his legs seemed too long to reach the sand, a subjective impression that almost amused him, but didn't quite. To the left another Martian was squatting cross-legged on the sand. Ronson looked, then looked again. He moved toward the Martian to make certain. It was the leper who had been on the street outside the dive. Without the rags, the Martian was hardly recognizable. The sores provided a certain means of identification. There was no mistaking them. "How did you get here?" Ronson asked. The leper made a weak gesture with his hands which said, "Go away." His attitude was resigned but about his manner was an air of expectancy. Ronson discovered that the place in which he had found himself was a cavern about half a mile in diameter. It was adequately lighted though the light sprang from no source that he could detect. The place was pleasant enough. There was water here. It flowed in little rills set in stonework. Grass and desert shrubs grew here. The air was moist, with a fragrant sweetness somewhere about it. Something was in the air besides the moisture and the fragrant sweetness. It was intangible, almost imperceptible. Ronson cocked his head, trying to catch this something. It was always out of the range of his sensory perception, an intangible, elusive quality that perplexed him. "Subliminal," he thought. "Maybe super-sonic sound just above the range of hearing." Why super-sonic sound? He did not know. He felt dazed. There was a heavy feeling through his whole body. Why was he here? He had been told he would see Les Ro. There was also talk about a man proving if he was worthy-- He did not like this thinking. He tried to shut it off, but it was a persistent gadfly that returned to buzz again and again in his brain.