Of a sudden then, he was biting his lips, and tears of chagrin were blinding his eyes. For the Krak still towered there, impassive and invulnerable, smashing the Earthmen down with his huge fists. One of the thirteen, Bill Hawkins, lay on the deck of the prison, his head split open like a ruptured muskmelon. Another moaned on the floor, helplessly trying to move both his broken arms. Mike fought to the last, but even his driving fists were stopped when the Krak pounded him on the side of the head and drove him to the floor. The Krak looked around the prison room impassively, his bald head moving slowly, effortlessly. Then he went out. The tar that was his muscles finally set and Sean could move. He crawled to where Mike lay spread-eagled on the floor, took the black-topped head in his lap, rocked with it. "Oh, Mike, I'm sorry. I was so sure." Tiny fists pounded on his bruised back. Sean started to turn. Then fingers were entwined in his red hair, yanking, bringing painful tears to his eyes. "Get away from him, you beast." Sean saw tiny, blonde Marcia, her soft face twisted into harsh lines, pulling him away from Mike. He let Mike's head drop gently to the deck. Then he stood up. Instantly Marcia was beside Mike, touching him, talking to him softly. Sean looked at Bill Hawkins lying dead there on the floor, the dark dead stuff smearing the polished surface. He looked at those others there. Despair was still there in their eyes, but something else, too. They looked away from him, deliberately avoiding his eyes. The soft moaning of Jack Wilson turned him around. "I'm sorry, Jack. It's my fault. I was so sure that was the vulnerable point." Jack's pain-filled eyes looked down on his broken arms, then fastened on Sean. "I wouldn't mind so much," Jack said through tight lips, "if it had worked." Then he looked away. Sean turned to Mike and Marcia. Mike was sitting up now, shaking his head dazedly. He saw Sean. Mike said just one word before he stood up and walked away with Marcia. The word was: "Satisfied?" For the rest of the trip, Sean McKenna had plenty of room to stretch his body out. As if by pre-arranged signal, he was given a wide berth, and those Earth people near him constantly tried to keep their backs to him. Impassively, the Kraks had come, and when they left, the body of Bill Hawkins went with them, leaving only that dark dried stain on the prison deck as a reminder. Perhaps it hadn't been deliberate, but the prisoners had made a lane through so that each time Sean McKenna lifted his harried green eyes he saw the spot where Hawkins had died. Hawkins' death twisted at Sean's heart, but it was always overshadowed by his conviction that the Kraks were vulnerable. Sean's mind probed, trying to find the answer to why Klash, the huge Krak, had flinched when Sean's fists had struck him. If ever he had seen pain, Sean swore to himself, it had been on Klash's face then. But what had caused it?