He sprang from the chair and covered the ten feet between them in two big bounds, stretching out one hand to grab the hand that held the disruptor. He deflected the weapon toward the ceiling. She did not fire. He closed on her wrist and forced her to drop the tiny pistol. Pressed against her, he stared into eyes blazing with anger. The anger melted suddenly into passion. He stepped back, reaching for his own gun, not willing to have such close contact with her. She was too dangerous. Better to kill her right now, he thought. She's just a Medlin. A deadly one. He started to draw the weapon from his tunic. Suddenly she lifted her hand; there was the twinkle of something bright between her fingers, and then Harris recoiled, helpless, as the bolt of a stunner struck him in the face like a club against the back of his skull. She fired again. He struggled to get his gun out, but his muscles would not obey. He toppled forward, paralyzed. CHAPTER IV Harris felt a teeth-chattering chill as he began to come awake. The stunner-bolt had temporarily overloaded his motor neurons, and the body's escape from the frustration of paralysis was unconsciousness. Now he was waking, and the strength was ebbing slowly and painfully back into his muscles. The light of morning streamed in through a depolarized window on the left wall of the unfamiliar room in which he found himself. He felt stiff and sore all over, and realized he had spent the night--where?-- He groped in his pockets. His weapons were gone; they had left his wallet. He got unsteadily to his feet and surveyed the room. The window was beyond his reach; there was no sign of a door. Obviously some section of the wall folded away to admit people to the room, but the door and door-jamb, wherever they were, must have been machined as smoothly as a couple of jo-blocks, because there was no sign of a break in the wall. He looked up. There was a grid in the ceiling. Airconditioning, no doubt--and probably a spy-mechanism also. He stared at the grid and said, "Okay. I'm awake now. You can come work me over." There was no immediate response. Surreptitiously Harris slipped a hand inside his waistband and squeezed a fold of flesh between his thumb and index finger. The action set in operation a minute amplifier embedded there; a distress signal, directionally modulated, was sent out to any Darruui agents who might be within a thousand-mile radius. He completed the gesture by lazily scratching his chest, stretching, yawning. He waited. Finally a segment of the door flipped upward out of sight, and three figures entered. He recognized one of them: Beth. She smiled at him and said, "Good morning, Major." Harris glared sourly at her. Behind her stood two males--one an ordinary-looking sort of Earther, the other rather special. He was about six feet six, well-proportioned for his height, with a regularity of feature that seemed startlingly beautiful.