I rested my short-handled hand-pick against the little heap of radite ore. I wiped my sweated brow with fingers that burned and tingled from contact with the radite. I peered covertly around at the many tunnels converging into the central place, and saw the other workers, Martians, and Earthmen, cowering under that sound of laughter. I wondered if I looked to them as they looked to me. I knew I was afraid. That was Marnick's laughter, I had heard it before. His special torture was going on again. Would I be next? So far I had luckily escaped. I tried to straighten up into a semblance of courage, but again that shrieking laughter came drifting down to cower me. At the same time McGowan left his tunnel next to mine, and came strolling over to me. I was aghast. For any man to so much as leave his post, meant that he would receive the same punishment that some poor devil up there was now receiving. But McGowan always was a reckless one. Tall, brutish, dark and always scowling, a light of indomitable spirit shone perpetually out of his contrasting gray eyes. Those eyes were now hate-filled as he cocked his head and listened to that laughter. "If only he wouldn't laugh," McGowan said in a voice so calm that it was doubly terrible. "If only he would go ahead with his torture, and watch it if he wished. But to laugh! And to let us know that he laughs! That is the crowning touch. Some day, Reed, I swear to you--" "Yes, I know," I whispered fearfully. "Some day one of us is going to kill him. A favorite dream here." "Not someone, Reed. Me! That is a privilege I reserve. And I shall not kill him. At least not in the usual way. I have a very special revenge planned for Mr. Marnick." That was a story I had heard before, too; but now something in McGowan's voice caused me to look sharply up at him. And the hate that smouldered in those eyes was such as I cared not to look upon. I glanced quickly away, and then I heard a smooth familiar hum from the central shaft. I knew what it was. I swooped for my hand-pick and began to ply it industriously. "Quick, McGowan, get back to your work!" I whispered. "Marnick's coming down again!" I'm sure McGowan knew that as well as I did, but he simply stood there, gazing almost expectantly at the place where the shaft led up through the cave roof. "You damn fool!" I whispered, but there was a tight little smile on McGowan's lips as he stood there. The hum continued. Even as I continued to hack at the hard-grained rock I shot a sidelong glance up at the shaft. Marnick's vehicle appeared suddenly there, seemingly suspended in the air. It was simply a glassite-enclosed, rounded cage, large enough to contain Marnick and the two lumbering, Jovian brutes he kept always with him. A pale violet halo hovered around the entire structure. It hung there just below the cave roof.