Somebody said, "Skimmer's coming into the airlock now, sir." Makvern turned around and looked at Brinna. His face was absolutely white. So was hers. White, frightened, and bitterly angry. "Who is Loran?" asked Wyatt. "One of our under officers," Makvern said, too quietly. "Come on, we mustn't keep them waiting." They left the bridge and went, not below to the main launching hold, but aft to a small lock. On the way Wyatt asked, "Can you tell me what's going on?" "For your own sake," said Makvern, "no." They got into the skimmer and the pilot took it away and they sat stiff and silent like three people going to a wake. And Wyatt had an idea he was about to get a little closer to the truth of whatever forces were operating behind the scenes here. He needed to know, needed it desperately. He was prepared to sell or double-cross anybody including himself in order to get a warning to Earth in time, but before he could do that he had to know who was buying, and what, and for how much. The skimmer passed swiftly through the fleet, past the great dull-gleaming hulls tarnished by a thousand atmospheres, pitted and scarred by the cosmic dust and drift of half a galaxy. The black enormous form of the flagship loomed ahead, blotting out the stars. The skimmer was gathered into it. A minute later, as they stood close together at the ladder head, Makvern whispered in English, "This is going to be ugly. Keep out of it, you understand? No matter what!" CHAPTER V The man was obviously sick, probably dying, painfully, spasmodically, and not from natural causes. He was a fairly young man, younger than Makvern, older than Brinna. He was strapped onto a kind of flat cradle made of a plastic mesh, and this was suspended in a circular pit, not very deep. Above the man, almost but not quite in contact with his body, was a double row of crystal rods, their bottom ends close together, their top ends spread to form a V. They were served by power leads that went away somewhere to the sides of the pit. Every so often, in answer to a signal, power was fed into the double-rods, a rapid flicker of bluish light ran up and down through them, and the man below them writhed and sobbed in a grotesque and hideous agony. Varsek gave the signals. He was sitting on a seat above the shallow pit, where he could look down comfortably into Loran's face while he talked to him. There was a ring of seats around the pit. Wyatt sat in one. So did Makvern, and Brinna, and several other officers Wyatt did not know. The pit was situated in the center of a quite small room with soundproof walls and a single door, very thick and having a lock on the inside. The room was deep in the most secret bowels of the flagship.