Maynard strained against the straps in futility. He felt that sense of failure overwhelm him again, and he fought against his fate in spite of the fact that there was nothing he could do about it. Another man would have resigned himself, realizing futility when it presented itself, and possibly would have made some sort of prayer. But Guy Maynard fought-- And the surge of low frequency, low voltage electricity raced into his body, removing everything but the torture of jerking muscle and the pain of twitching nerves. It was terrible torture. He felt that he could count each reversal of the low frequency, and yet he could do nothing of his own free will. The clock upon the wall danced before his jerking eyeballs so that he could not see the hands no matter how hard he tried. Ironically, it was a Martian clock and not calibrated into Terran time; it would have had no bearing on the five-minute periods of sheer hell. Ben Williamson raced across the sand of Sahara Base, raising a curling cloud of dust behind him. The little command car rocketed and careened as Williamson approached his destroyer, and then the long, curling cloud of dust took on the appearance of a huge exclamation point as the brakes locked and the command car slid to a stop beside the space lock. Williamson leaped from the command car and inside with three long strides. He caught the auxiliary switch on his way past, and the space lock whirred shut. "Executive to pilot," he yelled. "Take her up at six." The floor surged, throwing Williamson to his knees. Defiantly, Ben crawled to the executive's chair and rolled into the padded, body-supporting seat. He lay there for some seconds, breathing heavily. Then from the communicator there came the query: "Pilot to executive: Received. What's doing?" "Executive to crew: Martian of the _Mardinex_ class snatched Guy Maynard on a tractor. We're to pursue and destroy." "Golly!" breathed the pilot. "Maynard!" "That's right," said Williamson. "They grabbed him right in front of the BuEx and that's that." "But to destroy them--?" "We're running under TSI orders, you know," reminded Williamson. "Yeah, I know. But killing off one of our own people doesn't sound good to me. Makes me feel like a murderer." "I know," said Ben. "But remember, Maynard was grabbed by a Martian. Being an aide to Greggor, he was filled to the eyebrows with anti-lamine. That means the electro-treatment for him, plus a good shot of iso-dinilamine. All we're doing is giving peace to a man who is suffering the tortures of hell. After all, would any of you care to go on living after that combination was finished?" "No, I guess not. Must be worse than death not to have a mind." "What's worse is what happens. You haven't a mind--and yet you have enough mind to realize that fact. Strange psychological tangle, but there it is. Tough as it is, we've got to go through with it." "They're after some information on the _Orionad_?"