Four were down now. Prostrate. The fifth sought refuge in the animal box. The whip snaked around his legs and he was hauled into the open. The lash sizzled again and struck. I saw then that it must be set at lowest intensity – the most vicious setting that hurts the worst. The fellow screamed and tried to curl into himself on the floor.

They were all down now.

The Countess Krak stood up, straight and tall amongst them. No emotion. She was not even breathing hard.

She kicked the foreman of the transport crew in the side. He cringed, scuttling sideways on the floor.

In a totally emotionless voice she said, "When you get back to base, give this message to your boss: tell him that if he ever again sends me a maimed animal, I will train one to find him and kill him and turn it loose. Understand the message. Never maim an animal and expect I will accept it. You are still alive. Take your crew and get out of here!" The foreman booted his roustabouts to their feet and without a single glance at her they fled down the escalator, leaving only charred bits of their uniforms behind them.

The Countess Krak took a pocket call disc from her shabby coat and said something into it. Then she threw the electric whip in the general direction of the whip rack on the other side of the room.

With no change of expression whatever, she walked at a normal pace straight at that wild, freshly captured lepertige!

She pointed her finger at it. It sat and looked at her. With one snap it could have taken off her arm. But she just pointed with one hand at its face and then put out her other hand, palm up.

It lifted its maimed paw and laid all thirty or so pounds of it on her extended palm! She looked at the wounds left when the claws had been pulled out by the roots.

Her own crew was pouring out of a side door. They were the usual fortress scum, greasy, filthy, stripped to the waist, a dozen of them. They stayed wayback. They were not going to go near a lepertige, no indeed.

The Countess Krak put down the paw. Her finger was still pointing at the beast's face and she moved to one side of it. With her other hand she pointed at the box.

With a funny moan, the lepertige stood up on all fours. It was a bit taller than her shoulder. It began to limp across the room. With one finger pointing at it and the other at the case, she went along with the beast. It got into the box.

Instantly her crew was all motion. They slammed the front of the box shut. It was already on a dolly and they were ready to move it but had their eyes fixed on her for instructions.

"Put him in a warm cage," she said in an even voice. "Get one of Crobe's assistants to make a culture and, if possible, regrow those claws. And none of you tease that animal as it will now be even harder to train. Do you understand?" The mangy crew bobbed their heads emphatically. She snapped her fingers and they sped the shipping case onto the down escalator and were gone.

The place stank of stale sweat, decayed blood and ozone, the hallmarks of the Apparatus. Coils of smoke from the whip and bits of burning cloth stood in the air. The patches of greenish light held ugly secrets back in the shadows.

The Countess Krak walked sedately to the desk and platform by the door.

Heller moved. His eyes were interestedly gazing at all the vast array of machines in the room, machines made to generate shock and inflict twists and tortures.

The Countess saw me. Her eyes were emotionless. As she stepped up on the nearby platform, she opened her mouth to say something. I knew in advance what it would be. We were more than an hour late for Heller's training appointment. I was about to getmy hide taken off, all without emotion, one layer at a time.

But she stopped. Her eyes were on Jettero Heller.

Squinting a trifle to see better, Heller was walking down along the wall, away from us. He was peering at the first machine. It was a squat brute, coated with decay. If a person were put in it, his brains could be fried in varying and precisely calculated degrees. Heller did something to a latch on the side of it and lifted the cover of its circuit section, exposing a dusty array of boards and components. He started poking into its guts and must have disconnected something as he held up a loose wire end and began to examine it.

I chilled like ice. Fooling about with equipment here was not something one did. I looked quickly at the Countess Krak. She was just standing there, watching him. There was no expression on her face at all. There never was. This female was as beautiful as a Goddess on the altar of a church, but every bit as cold as that carved stone. More so. I held my breath. I didn't know what she would do to handle this violation of her area. I suspected the worst.

I really don't think Heller had seen her come to the platform by the door. The light was bad in the place and he seemed fascinated with the machines. Strung out along the walls, they were a brutal display. He went to the next one, a thing of twisted arms and bulky gears: it was a tendon stretcher and, while one might have said it could be used for acrobats or contortionists, it really was a product of torture chambers. He pulled his finger along the seat and gazed at the grime on his hand. He pulled out one of those star-shaped red cloths engineers are always using as cleaning rags and wiped his finger.

The next machine had small fluid tanks all around it and was a tangle of tubes and holding straps. Its purpose was to alternately freeze and roast a body, to deliver temperature shocks and rid it of excess fat, but it too belonged in torture chambers. He opened one of the tanks and looked in. He shook his head and moved on.

Countess Krak's head was turning to follow his progress and, from where I stood, I could no longer see her eyes. I had no faintest idea of what she would do. It had been violently proven three times in the past two years that she could and would kill.

Heller was looking over the next machine. It was a maze of electrodes that could be applied to different parts of a strapped-down body. There was a sort of projector screen. The hapless being strapped to it could be shocked with high voltage and shown pictures at the same time. Heller popped open the cover of the transformers and peered into the circuits. He got out a little pinpoint light and looked deeper. He didn't even bother to replace the cover and walked on.

The Countess Krak stood there, turning slowly, watching.

The next device had huge ear cups that clamped down upon a victim's head. It delivered blasting waves of sound when it was turned on. The sound would go on and off. I knew of it and these other machines because of their counterparts in interrogation rooms. They might be called "training machines" but the agony they could deliver was acute. Heller fiddled with a couple of its switches, shrugged, and then passed on.

There were more machines, one that stabbed with light, another that bathed a whole body in raw electricity, others I did not know. But Heller had lost interest.

The Countess Krak hadn't. She had pivoted until I could only see her back. There was a chair on the platform beside her and she placed her hand on it's tall back. I thought maybe she was going to throw it but she just stood there.

Heller, oblivious of any audience or threat, idled over to the raised exercise platform at the extreme end of the room. His attention had gone off machines but was now on athletics. A big, hundred-pound bag, used by acrobats to practice hefting bodies, lay in his path. He idly picked it up and made it spin rapidly, holding it up on top of one fingertip. He let it drop and looked about.

There were some rings suspended on long ropes that met in the center of the vast hall. One of the rings had been hung on a peg at the extreme end of the room. Heller jumped up and disengaged it and, in the same motion, holding to it, swung from there toward us in a long, graceful arc. He obviously thought it easier than just walking back.