ill tell us
exactly what we wish to hear."

There was a confidence in that statement which chilled Ross; Major
Kelgarries had displayed its like. Ashe had it in another degree, and
certainly it had been present in Baldy. There was no doubt that the
speaker meant exactly what he said. He had at his command methods which
would wring from his captive the full sum of what he wanted, and there
would be no consideration for that captive during the process.

His implied threat struck as cold as the glacial air, and Ross tried to
meet it with an outward show of uncracked defenses. He decided to pick
and choose from his information, feeding them scraps to stave off the
inevitable. Hope dies very hard, and Ross having been pushed into
corners long before his work at the project, had had considerable
training in verbal fencing with hostile authority. He would volunteer
nothing.... Let it be pulled from him reluctant word by word! He would
spin it out as long as he could and hope that time might fight for him.

"You are an agent...."

Ross accepted this statement as one he would neither affirm nor deny.

"You came to spy under the cover of a barbarian trader," smoothly,
without pause, the man changed language in mid-sentence, slipping from
the Beaker speech into English.

But long experience in meeting the dangerous with an expression of
complete lack of comprehension was Ross's weapon now. He stared somewhat
stupidly at his interrogator with that bewildered, boyish look he had
so long cultivated to bemuse enemies in his past.

Whether he could have held out long against the other's skill--for Ross
possessed no illusions concerning the type of examiner he now faced--he
was never to know. Perhaps the drastic interruption that occurred the
next moment saved for Ross a measure of self-esteem.

There was a distant boom, hollow and thunderous. Underneath and around
them the floor, walls, and ceiling of the room moved as if they had been
pried from their setting of ice and were being rolled about by the
exploring thumb and forefinger of some impatient giant.

CHAPTER 13

Ross swayed against a guard, was fended off, and bounced against the
wall as the man shouted words Ross could not understand. A determined
roar from the leader brought a semblance of order, but it was plain that
they had not been expecting this. Ross was hustled out of the room back
to his cell. His guards were opening the cell door when a second shock