* * * * * Sound welled up, pitched high and keening and almost inaudible. What was heard, was jarring and maddening. It took a man's nerve-ends out and scratched on them until his entire body was dancing. Grim stood shivering, trying to lift his hands to shelter his eardrums; discovering this his arms were jumping free of his will. He whispered, "I can't do it. I can't turn it off." Something rolled against his leg. It was old Jasper Jones, eyes rolling in his head, a bubbly white froth at his mouth. Grim's knees shook. They went in different directions and he pitched to the metal floor. His body danced a weird saraband against the metal. He thought, 'If something doesn't happen, we'll all go _mad_!' He knew that sound could crush them; that this sound that was jumbling their brains was enough for that, given the time to build itself. His hands shook. His body quivered. His brain throbbed, and blackness swept down and blinded him. * * * * * The sound was gone. Someone was shaking him by the shoulder, urgently. Grim opened tired eyelids. Tlokine bent over him, fright making her red nails dig deep into his shoulder. Grim said words, but he did not hear them. He put hands to his ears, found them plugged with cotton. The sound came through, a little, but it was muffled, ineffective. He got up and took the wad of cotton that Tlokine still held and forced two balls of it into old Jasper Jones' ears. After a while the old man sat up and looked at them. Grim said, even though he knew they could not hear him, "I'm going up and tie up Black Randolph for once and all. Then we'll turn this thing off and parley with the others." The pirate was in even worse state than Grim had been; he had been nearer to the vast loudspeakers, had felt the numbing shock of those sound-waves. Like a man in water, close to an explosion, his brain and lungs had hemorrhaged. His chest was bloated, swollen. Grim covered him, turned to the lovely Althaya; covered her quickly, too. He turned off the machine and stood in a silence that was almost as dreadful as the sound had been. Jasper Jones and Tlokine came up the floor opening, removing their earplugs. "They got it the worst. They were right on top of the high pressure waves coming from the speaker," Grim said, gesturing at the covered bodies. "The others, outside--they were further away, as we were. They'll be all right, in a little while." Jones said, "It was horrible." Tlokine whispered, "It did not bother me. I was too far away. But when I saw Black Randolph and Althaya bend over, clutching at their stomachs--what was it, Grim?" "High pressure waves, that hit anything in their path with terrific impact. It's sound, but not sound as we generally think of it. After the first wave a section of air follows, acts as suction. Repeated high pressure and suction waves--well, they rip out tissues and smash blood vessels."