"I'll not tell you a thing, Stine. Not about the alloy, or even how to rig your guns to beat it." The next blow was with Stine's closed fist. Jon's head snapped back viciously, and he held on by sheer will to consciousness. He tensed for another blow. It did not come. And suddenly, Stine's voice was a calm, almost silky thing, barely loud enough for Jon to hear. "A pity," he was saying, "that your man is so defiant a fellow, Lenantech. I almost imagine that even after the risk you took to save his hide, he'd watch your pretty face be beaten to a pulp rather than tell me the things I'd like to know! That's the way with these noble fellows, you know. Of course, a girl's face isn't everything. But, I suppose that he'd even--" "Stine, you wouldn't dare!" "Care to try me, Master Kane?" "Damn you, Stine--" The big man clenched his right fist, raised it, and Jon watched Deanne's face whiten, saw the silent plea in her eyes in the quick glance she gave him. But her taut lips did not move. "You had better speak, Kane--" "All right! All right, I'll rig your guns for you!" "And you'd better hurry! Unless my screens are out of order, your precious ten billion Prokymen haven't too much time left." Jon looked at the screens again, and he knew his horror was reflected in his swollen face. Something writhed sickeningly inside him and he looked at the screen in which the Geejay swung. B-Haaq and his men were at last leaving it! Leaving it, giving up. But he said nothing as Stine summoned Haine from in-ship, and kept his silence as the squat, burly man unshackled him while Stine held a hand weapon at Deanne's head. "I'll need her to help," he bit out then. "On your guns, as well as on the Justifier. She's worked on double-A's before." "She stays, Kane!" "Very well, she stays. But if this outfit can't get the Geejay fixed either, people won't be too impressed, will they. I say I need her, Stine. That thing out there is too badly wrecked even for me, now, alone. But it's up to you. I'll rig your guns." "All right, Kane! All right. The woman goes with you. But she stays right here until you've done a job on my batteries!" "You win, I'm not arguing. Let's get it over with." Haine led him out of the NIC room, and he could feel Deanne's accusing eyes at his back. She hated him now. He knew it. XI The thin disc shown weirdly in the light of the tortured binary, and Jon guided Deanne's suit-bloated figure up over its lip, then clambered to its sleek metal surface himself. It was a tricky business, without weight, and without sufficient handling knowledge of the alien-built power pack to attempt the delicate maneuvering required with it. Together, wordlessly, they reeled in the cylindrical capsule which contained their tools.