"Go on," urged Theodi. "_Go on?_" screamed Sandra. "Go on? No!" "But--" "Go on and on and on and on and on?" shrieked Sandra in a crescendo that ended in a toneless, inarticulate screech. She stopped the sentence only because her voice had no more range and she had no more breath. "Theodi, I feel like a murderess! I go on selecting people as I would select specimens to be speared with a mounting pin and stuck on a cardboard. I point them out. They follow dumbly with a look of resignation. They come and you try something new on them--every time it is something new, and you don't know whether it'll kill 'em or not! I can't stand it." "But who can we have to do this?" "Get one of your own to do your own dirty work! You need me! Bah! Suppose--?" "Suppose we have the right combination?" "Suppose you have? You haven't--and you know it." "I wouldn't say that." "I would. You're just experimenting." Sandra's lip curled over her perfect teeth in a perfect sneer. "Experimenting on your own kind. And I'm no better. You should hate me--and I'm beginning to hate you and every one of you." "This must go on--" "It'll go on without me." "Come on, Sandrake. Buck up. Here, I'll give you a sedative and you sleep for an hour. You're over-tired. Then--" "Then nothing. I can't go on murdering your people any more." "It's not murder. It's--" "It's worse than murder. You go on filling them with colored water and telling them that you think that this is the works--and you know it is just another blind try! Go away!" Sandra whirled and ran blindly. Across the field she ran, out and away from the village. On and on she ran, until she fell breathless beside a small brook. Thankfully, she dabbled in the brook with her tired feet, and laved the cool water on her wrists and forehead. She drank sparingly, and then stretched on her back to relieve the strained muscles that seemed to make her back arch almost to the breaking point. Unknowing, Sandra relaxed as the ground supported her back, and with the suddenness of falling night, Sandra slept. Her dreams were less restful than the sleep. They were filled with a whirling panorama of lights, disembodied faces, grinning, leering faces who watched long, brutal needles find the vitals of mute sufferers whose only visible admission of unbearable pain was the tortured look on their mobile faces. And through the dream, McBride and Hammond fought against a huge metal barrier against which their mightiest efforts were futile. * * * * * The day wore on as Sandra slept, and night came, and in all that time Sandra had hardly moved. As the darkness fell, she aroused enough to drink from the brook and settle herself in a more comfortable position. Afterward she did not recall awakening at all but she did select a thick thatch of soft moss the second time and she wondered about it later. And it was about midnight when Sandra awoke.