"He'll do for raw material." Thurner shoved the little Greek to the
floor, "Use him for Extract 47-a. Humanizing fluid."
The Neptunian shuddered. "The thought," he said, "of treating another
of our people with that semi-humanizing element is repulsive. But
sacrifice in the interest of conquest is needed. We must have more
Neptunians capable of resisting higher temperatures and lower
gravities."
Thurner grinned. "Precisely," he said. He turned to Timmy, and judged
him as a man might judge a Percheron stallion. "This one is too lean."
The Leader nodded. "Our dear guest will be of use in research and
mechanics. We might even grant him certain liberties."
Timmy glared at the monster, hating that assumed tolerance, then spat
with deliberation on the floor. "Try to use me," he grunted.
* * * * *
"_A challenge?_" The Leader pressed a button. A bell rang, and two
squat Neptunians glided into the chamber. There was a burble and a
hissed command. The Neptunians retreated, then returned dragging a
small box behind them. Its wires were a tangle maze of tentacles.
Icy cold exuded from it, to chill the two Callistonians even through
their heavily-heated space suits. The Leader barked an order. Timmy
found himself flat on his back with a Neptunian servant pressing
the face-plate of his suit down hard. There was a little whirl of
power. Agonies unimaginable shot through every nerve of his skull. He
screamed. Restraint was impossible. The pain eased.
"You see!" said the Neptunian, "that treatment does no harm to nerves
or tissues, and actually prolongs life."
Timmy looked past the grinning faces of his tormenters and fixed his
glare on the reptilian Leader. "Try again," he said. "I'm still tough."
The pain came back. It spun through skull and brain like a biting
buzz-saw. Timmy gritted his teeth, then again came the inevitable
scream. He wanted to faint. He prayed for death. But that buzzing pain
was an elixir ... a stimulating and eternal torment. Timmy's hands
thumped hard against the floor. His feet jerked, his spine arched, and
he screamed again and again in a great crescendo. The pain eased.
"Could you stand that," said the grinning Neptunian, "for a lifetime?"
"_No!_"
"Then I warn you, the next time we apply it, you'll be alone in a dark
room ... with a time clock on the door set for a one-week period. No
one will enter. No one can stop the _treatment_. Will you cooperate?"
"Within limits."
"That's for me to judge. Give me the figures on how you managed to
create that ship of yours."
"That's agreeable. You could take them anyhow." Timmy reached into a
pocket of his space suit. He pulled out a bundle of papers and handed
them to the Leader. "I warn you," he added, "they won't work." Then he
swore at himself for saying that. If, by ingenuity, he could manage to
convince the Neptunians that his ship would work, he might waste a lot
of their time in research and give the Inner Worlds time to find out
what was happening. "I might manage to make one work at that," he added
swiftly.
The Neptunian scanned the papers. "No," he said, "this report of your
scientific laboratories is definitely conclusive. I can see that you've
done everything possible. The ship you have, or _had_, is a freak. But
you're an expert in mechanics and photography. We'll put you in the
research labs. Your friend can go with you until we need him."
The Neptunian cast one final look at the two captives, smiled, and
walked away. Thurner jerked his head at an inner door. "Come on," he
ordered. "Your quarters will be near the labs." He led them down a
succession of corridors to a room where temperature and gravity stood
at Earth-norm, and Callisto constant. "You can do without those suits,"
he said, and shut the door.
Timmy and Damokles looked around. The room was lighted quite brightly.
A window gave onto the plain. Above them, Triton whirled its endless
mad dance, speeding across the sky in the opposite direction of the
planet's rotation. Timmy watched it. Here and there in the dark sky,
synthetic power-moons hovered to steal energy from the cosmos.
"They gonna feed us, anyhows," said Johnny Damokles, and turned on the
faucet of a food conveyor. Hot, spicy-scented edibles poured forth,
but Timmy wasn't interested. Not far from them, half-lost in the gray
light, two giant semi-globes towered heavenwards. Tim stared at them.
Apparently the Neptunians were building another power-moon to add to
that whirling band above. He watched as squat figures moved up and
down its side, then walked from the window in a fog. Damokles tried to
engage him in conversation, but Timmy was too defeated. He fell asleep.
* * * * *
Morning dawned swiftly because of the giant planet's rapid rotation.
Seven hours of total blackness were then followed by a _day_ ... but
a day in name only. The sun out here had only one one-thousandth of
its Earthian strength. For human purposes, it was useless. Timmy was
standing by the window when the door swung open. Thurner stood on the
threshold.
"Come on," he ordered, "your job is ready." He looked at Johnny
Damokles. "Might as well use you, too. Get into your space suit." The
little Greek obeyed.
The next seven hours passed as a nightmare for Timmy. For Johnny,
working outside as a slave on the power-moon, they must have been pure
hell.
Timmy returned to their room that evening to find a tired little Greek
sprawled on the couch. "Work you hard, chum?"
Damokles groaned. A livid weal ran down the side of his face, where a
blow had slammed his head about in his helmet. "We get these Neptune
bums ... Timmy," he said.
"Sure thing, pal. But how?"