Raynor offered no response, nor was one expected.

Brucker turned to the taskmaster. “Take him to the wet room. I’ll be there shortly.”

The guards hauled Raynor out of the room, and Brucker was about to follow when he remembered the POWs. He paused to look back. “You played well tonight … not perfectly, but well. You have my permission to clean up the scraps.” And with that he left.

The POWs stood, looked at one another, and shuffled toward the head of the table. One by one they spit on Brucker’s dessert plate before passing through the door on their way back to the bleak buildings where they spent each night. Would the spy tell Brucker what he had told them? Yes, that was the way of things at KIC-36, and the dark-haired stranger would be grateful when death came for him.

KEL-MORIAN INTERNMENT CAMP-36, ON THE PLANET TURAXIS II

Judging from the look of things, the torture chamber doubled as a morgue. Or was it the other way around? Not that it mattered. A scattering of instruments lay on a stand, indicator lights marked pieces of electronic equipment, and the air was chilly.

Raynor was naked except for a pair of trunks, and the framework that supported him was slanted away from the floor and positioned over a drain. Bright lights burned his eyes, but when Raynor managed to penetrate the glare, he could see a hazy figure that he knew to be Overseer Brucker. The officer’s thronelike chair was positioned on a raised platform that gave him a better view of the proceedings. “So,” Brucker said, “how are you feeling?”

Raynor thought the torture had been going on for at least half an hour by then, although he had no way to keep track of time. The Kel-Morians hadn’t brought out the hot irons. Not yet anyway. Brucker’s so-called “truth monitor,” a man named Dr. Moller, preferred to use needles. And thanks to his medical training, he knew exactly where to insert them to inflict the maximum amount of pain.

So Raynor’s throat was sore from screaming, his body was soaked with sweat, and as he tilted his head down he could see clusters of needles protruding from various parts of his body. All of them hurt like hell. “I could use an aspirin,” he croaked.

“You’ll be glad to hear that Dr. Moller can relieve pain as well as inflict it,” Brucker replied. “But, before we move to that stage, let’s review what we have so far… . You were sent to gather information about my base. Correct?”

“Yes,” Raynor replied hoarsely.

“And,” Brucker continued, “you claim that Confederate forces are scheduled to attack us at some point during the next two weeks.”

Raynor knew that the leads attached to his body were connected to some sort of lie detector. So the key was to tell the truth as frequently as he could without divulging the most critical fact. Find spider holes and hide, he kept repeating in his head, fearful that the pain would make him momentarily lose his lucidity. An attack was coming all right—but in hours rather than weeks. If he could hold that piece of information back he could protect his friends and prevent a massacre. “Yes, they’re going to attack you,” Raynor agreed.

Raynor blinked the sweat out of his eyes and saw Brucker’s hazy form turn toward a barely visible Moller. The doctor answered the unspoken question with an elaborate shrug. His voice was flat and emotionless. “It appears that he’s telling the truth, or some version of it. One thing seems clear, though… . The attack isn’t imminent. Not if they’re still in the process of gathering intelligence.”

“All right,” Brucker said agreeably, “let’s switch topics for a moment. Tell me about the neural resocialization program. I want to know who runs it, how it works, and what results have been obtained.”

Raynor’s mouth was dry. He tried to summon some saliva but couldn’t.“ ‘Resocialization’? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Moller stepped in at that point, pushed one of the needles in deep, and flicked another with his forefinger. Raynor screamed, and screamed again, as Moller shoved a third needle in under one of his toenails.

“Now,” Brucker said, as the screaming died away. “Let’s try that again. Perhaps you call the program something else… . But based on information obtained by our intel, criminals and other troublemakers are being taken to special centers, where experimental treatments are used to erase their antisocial tendencies. What a sick group of people you are. Kel-Morians would never do anything so cruel. We hear you have quite a few of these brainwashed dullards serving in your armed forces. Now, provide me with all of the relevant details, or suffer some more.”

There was so much pain that Raynor found it difficult to think. “I can’t tell you,” Raynor croaked. “I don’t know.”

“He doesn’t know,” Moller agreed. “Or so it appears.”

“I don’t believe it,” Brucker responded cynically. “Who knows? Maybe this one has been brainwashed. Try again.”

Moller obeyed, and Raynor experienced a jolt of pain so powerful that if felt as if his skull might crack open. So, when the tidal wave of darkness arrived he was grateful for it, and allowed himself to be carried away.

Raynor had died and gone to hell. That’s what he assumed anyway, given his inability to see, and the pain that racked his body. There was light, he knew that, because he could see it through his lids, and feel the heat of it. So he attempted to open his eyes—but it felt as if they were glued shut. The obvious solution was to reach up and rub them. When he tried to do so he discovered that his hands were bound behind him.

So Raynor tried again, willing his eyes to open, and this time his efforts met with success. His left eye popped open, followed by his right, but the light was so bright that he was forced to close them again.

Raynor’s eyelids fluttered, his pupils made the necessary adjustment, and his vision was restored. Now he realized that the bright orb was the sun! It had risen over the hill Vanderspool had designated as “Charlie” during mission training and was spearing him with its rays.

That was the moment when Raynor discovered it was possible to be alive and in hell at the same time. Because as he struggled to summon some saliva in his bone-dry mouth it became apparent that he was dangling from a rope. A fact made even more obvious when a breeze caused his body to spin. His harness creaked in protest. Oh, God.

It wasn’t long before Raynor realized that he wasn’t alone. A prisoner named Cole Hickson, a twenty-year-old soldier who had been captured during a skirmish in the zone, was suspended, unconscious and badly beaten, off to Raynor’s left. They had shared a cell, and just before Raynor was taken out to be interrogated, Hickson had offered some sage advice. “Try to hide, if you can. Find spider holes in your mind, and crawl into them.”

That advice had carried Raynor through the worst parts of the torture. He had been trained at boot camp to withstand interrogation techniques, but he knew a person could easily forget those skills in the presence of physical pain. He hoped Hickson would survive, but more than that, he hoped the mission to save the POWs would be a success, so that if he himself died, it would be for something.

But that seemed unlikely as Raynor looked past Hickson and saw the bird-pecked remains of a third man. He was little more than a tattered skeleton. They were hanging from spokes attached to a central column. It squeaked as the wind attempted to turn it. Then, as the breeze grew stronger and the spokes began to rotate in earnest, shadows flickered across the camp below.