d lipstick came off on it.

He pushed the unconscious body aside and fished the packet out from
under the desk. He searched the room for another hiding place.

But it was too late. A section of wall opened and Hafitz, the fat man in
the wheelchair, sped in.

He wheeled past the young man, looked briefly at the unconscious girl,
then whisked himself around.

"You will pay for this, my friend," he said. "But first we will have the
plans for the way-station. Where are they?"

"I don't know anything about any plans and I don't know anything about a
way-station. I tried to tell the girl: it's all a crazy mistake."

"We will see," said Hafitz. He pressed a button on the arm of his
wheelchair and two bruisers appeared through the walls, in the abrupt
way people had of materializing here. Bruisers was the only way they
could be described. They were human brutes, all muscle and malevolence.

"Take them," said Hafitz, indicating the unconscious girl and the young
man. "Take them and search them for a small packet. If you do not find
it, search this room. If you do not find it still, hurt the male animal.
They persuade well with pain here, I understand. But do not kill him. I
will be in the communications room."

He sped off, through a wall opening.

One of the bruisers picked up the girl, roughly, and disappeared with
her. The other grabbed the young man and hauled him off in a third
direction. The young man hastily snatched up his coat, shirt and tie en
route.

They ended up in a cell of a room, about seven feet in all directions,
in which the bruiser stripped him, methodically went through each piece
of clothing, and then satisfied himself that he didn't have the packet
anywhere on his body.

The muscle-man then raised a fist.

"Wait," his prospective victim said. He thought back quickly. "Hafitz
didn't say you could bat me around till you searched the room, too."

The other spoke for the first time. "You say the truth." He put his arm
down.

The young man watched intently as the bruiser went through the wall of
the cell-like room.

He dressed fast. By placing his fingers in exactly the same position as
the other had done, was able to make the wall open for him.

The silver-metal corridor had two directions. He went to the right.
After many turnings, at each of which he reconnoitered carefully, he
came to a passageway that was damp. Why it was damp he couldn't tell,
but there in the wetness were tracks which