lf in on his back, his knees hunched up almost under his chin. To
make it worse, cramped as those quarters were, he had to share them with
the major. A transparent hood snapped down and was secured, sealing them
in.

During his short lifetime Ross had often been afraid, bitterly afraid.
He had fought to toughen his mind and body against such fears. But what
he experienced now was no ordinary fear; it was panic so strong that it
made him feel sick. To be shut in this small place with the knowledge
that he had no control over his immediate future brought him face to
face with every terror he had ever known, all of them combined into one
horrible whole.

How long does a nightmare last? A moment? An hour? Ross could not time
his. But at last the weight of a giant hand clamped down on his chest,
and he fought for breath until the world exploded about him.

He came back to consciousness slowly. For a second he thought he was
blind. Then he began to sort out one shade of grayish light from
another. Finally, Ross became aware that he no longer rested on his
back, but was slumped in a seat. The world about him was wrung with a
vibration that beat in turn through his body.

Ross Murdock had remained at liberty as long as he had because he was
able to analyze a situation quickly. Seldom in the past five years had
he been at a loss to deal with any challenging person or action. Now he
was aware that he was on the defensive and was being kept there. He
stared into the dark and thought hard and furiously. He was convinced
that everything that was happening to him this day was designed with
only one end in view--to shake his self-confidence and make him pliable.
Why?

Ross had an enduring belief in his own abilities and he also possessed
a kind of shrewd understanding seldom granted to one so young. He knew
that while Murdock was important to Murdock, he was none too important
in the scheme of things as a whole. He had a record--a record so bad
that Rawle might easily have thrown the book at him. But it differed in
one important way from that of many of his fellows; until now he had
been able to beat most of the raps. Ross believed this was largely
because he had always worked alone and taken pains to plan a job in
advance.

Why now had Ross Murdock become so important to someone that they would
do all this to shake him? He was a volunteer--for what? To be a guinea
pig for some bug they wanted to learn how to kill cheaply and e