Horrified, Hendley renewed his desperate resistance. He tried to shout against the gag. "You've got to listen to me! I'm one of you! I feel the same way!" But there were only meaningless, muffled sounds. The visitor paid no attention. He was trying to tug Hendley's identity disc over his hand. You fool! Hendley thought. If you'd just listen to me. It opens up and slips right off! "This is going to hurt," the visitor said softly. "But there's no other way. It's got to come off." One of the thick, strong hands seized Hendley's recently healed left hand and began to apply tremendous pressure. Pain erupted blindingly, filling Hendley's mind, blotting out all other awareness. He screamed against the gag. The pressure only increased. Waves of nausea seized him. Then, like a dry twig, the weak new adhesion of bone in his hand snapped. He fainted. * * * * * When Hendley came to, slowly, swimming out of a pool of blackness and aching pain, his eyes opened to a graying darkness. It was not yet dawn. He'd been unconscious for only a few minutes. At first the only significance of this knowledge was that the hunt was not over. But the gray was a promise of dawn. Soon he could rest. He saw the figure standing over him, struggling into a uniform which was far too tight--with a red marker stripe along the back. Hendley felt the loose folds of a strange uniform wrapped about his own body, tasted the remains of nausea in his mouth and the wet discomfort of the sodden gag, and shivered at the searing pain in his hand. He remembered. The visitor glanced down at him. Seeing Hendley's open, staring eyes, he paused. "I didn't think you'd wake up till it was all over," he said softly. "Too bad." Hendley began to fight against his bonds with the fury of hysteria, heedless of the pain tearing up his arm. Everything couldn't end this way, so stupidly, so insanely! The man had to listen to him! But the visitor merely watched him as one might with objective curiosity observe the dying struggles of an insect. In the end Hendley's wild, bitter rage spent itself as his energies were exhausted. He went limp. "I'll make it quick," the visitor said, in a tone that was practical rather than sympathetic. "Sorry about the hand, but it couldn't be helped." He finished adjusting the snug uniform. Hendley wondered if the man had forgotten the target stripe now on his back. It didn't seem to matter. _He_ would reap the safety dawn would bring. Suddenly the bulky figure lowered as the visitor squatted over Hendley. One of the meaty hands reached for Hendley's throat. The gesture was arrested. The visitor was still, his head cocked, a frown knitting his forehead. Listening, Hendley heard the sounds which had disturbed the visitor: the rustle, snap, and whisper of men moving through the woods. They were already close. "Organization be damned!" the visitor hissed through set teeth. "They're coming back!"