The crystal tubes were dead now. Loran rolled his head from side to side and moaned. He had bitten his lips and tongue, and he was bleeding slightly from the nose. Varsek watched him. There was not a sound in the room other than Loran's moaning. Nobody moved. Nobody met anyone else's eye. Nobody spoke. There might have been a concourse of waxen dummies above the pit. Except for Varsek. He spoke. He called Loran by name, several times, with a dispassionate persistence, until he answered. Then Varsek said, "Who is the leader of the Second Party?" He had asked that question fifty, a hundred times before, in exactly that tone of voice. And Loran answered, as he had fifty or a hundred times before, "There is no Second Party." Only his voice was weaker every time he said it. And Wyatt was sicker. He clenched his hands and shut his jaw tight. There was nothing he could do. He kept telling himself that. There was nothing he could do. Varsek said, "It's no use to lie to me, Loran. There is a Second Party. Every ship in the fleet including this one has some officers and some men who are not loyal to me--who are in fact dedicated to the task of taking the fleet away from me. This I know Loran, I have absolute proof. I'm only asking you who the leader is." "There is no Second Party." "Is he one of my staff officers, Loran?" "There is no--" "Which one?" And he named them through one at a time, including Makvern and Brinna, every one that was there, and they sat in the bright light with blank faces and fear in their eyes. Loran said, "There is no Second Party." "Let's be realistic about this," Varsek said. "Your friends, the men you're so nobly protecting, can't help you now. I'm the only one who can. I can have you up out of there in a minute, with the best medical attention and everything you need to fix you up. All you have to do is answer my questions. That's your duty, isn't it, Loran? Didn't you swear an oath of loyalty to Uryx and the government of Uryx, and to me as the duly appointed servant of that government?" No answer. "You're a young man, Loran. I don't imagine you love the idea of death. Why leap at it? Tell me the names of the disloyal officers you know, and you can live." Loran said distinctly, "Go to hell." Varsek gave the signal again. The banked rods pulsed and flickered, and whatever nerve-searing, flesh-torturing force was in them went to work on Loran. * * * * * Wyatt got up. He called Varsek the dirtiest name he could think of, in a kind of choked and half-articulate voice, and then he started for him. It was obviously a silly thing to do but he wasn't really thinking about it. He just had a simple desire to stop Varsek from doing what he was doing.