Cassius chuckled. His prosthetic larynx made it a weird sound. "I will, yes. If I can."

"You promised, Gneaus. You gave me your word."

"You're right, Michael. But Cassius never promised you anything. Neither did Masato, and I've got the feeling he's mad about what you did to his brothers."

Mouse's attempt to look fierce fell flat. Dee did not notice. He was too involved with himself and Fearchild, whom he had just noticed.

"My God! My God!" he moaned. "What are you doing?"

"Thought he'd be up to his neck in houris, eh?" Cassius asked.

Michael stared, aghast. He was not inhuman. He loved his children. His parental concern overcame his trepidation. "Fear. Fear. What're they doing to you?"

"Plug him in, Cassius," Storm ordered. "It should make him more amenable."

Mouse and Cassius lifted a passive Michael onto an automated operating table.

Fearchild's situation did not seem cruel at first glance. He was chained to a wall. He wore a helmet that enveloped his head. A thick bundle of wires attached the helmet to a nearby machine.

That machine restricted Fearchild to limits that kept him barely among the living. Like Valerie in Festung Todesangst, he was permitted no lapses in self-awareness. Nor was he free to slide off into insanity. The machine enforced rationality with a battery of psychiatric drugs. At random intervals it stimulated his pain center with an equally random selection of unpleasant sensations.

They were all cruel men.

Mouse worked in a daze, not quite able to believe this place was real, not quite able to accept that his father had created it.

Cassius adjusted Fearchild's machine so the younger Dee could take an interest in what was being done to his father.

Mouse and Cassius strapped Michael to the table, rotated it till it stood upright. Storm watched impassively. Cassius positioned and adjusted surgical machinery which included a system similar to that which kept Fearchild sane. He added an anaesthesia system programmed to heighten rather than dampen pain.

"Do we have to do this?" Mouse whispered.

Cassius nodded. He was enjoying himself.

All cruel men.

"I keep my word, Michael," Storm said. His voice was soft, weak, and tired. "No matter what, I'll never kill you. I tried to make a point on The Mountain. You refused to understand it. I'm going to make it again here, a little more strongly. Maybe you'll get the message this time."

He paused for a minute, gathering strength. "Michael, I'm going to make you beg me to kill you. And I'm going to keep my promise and make sure you stay alive. You ready, Cassius?"

Cassius nodded.

"Give him a taste."

The machine whined. A tiny scalpel flayed a few square millimeters of skin off Dee's nose. A second waldo bathed the exposed flesh with iodine. A third applied a small dressing. The anaesthesia program intensified the fire of the antiseptic. Dee shrieked.

"Enough. You see, Michael? That rig is a little toy I put in when we slapped this place together. I had a feeling you'd make me use it someday. What it will do is skin you a few square millimeters at a time, here and there. You'll get plenty of time to heal so the skinning won't ever end. Think about that. Pain for the rest of your life."

Dee whimpered. His eyes seemed glazed.

Mouse turned his back. He kept jerking from the stomach upward as he fought to keep his breakfast down. Cassius laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Easy," he whispered.

Storm snarled, "Michael, Michael, you've just got to play your games. You can't claim you weren't warned. You can't say you didn't know the risks." He waved a weak hand at Cassius. "Do an eyelid now."

Dee flushed a pale shade of death. "My face... "

Cruel men. Cassius laughed. The sound was so malignant it seemed no artificial voice box could have produced it.

"There'll be scars," Storm promised. His voice was soft, musing. "Yes. That will hurt more than the skinning, won't it? Cassius, make sure there are plenty of scars in the program. Do something artistic."

Dee cried, "Damn it, Gneaus... "

"This isn't a pleasure spa, Michael. This is hell. Your own private hell. You brought it on yourself. Then you expect the rest of us to feel sorry for you. It doesn't work that way. We aren't kids now. You can't fool us the way you used to. We're on to all of your tricks."

"Gneaus, not my face."

"You want to tell us why Blackworld means so much to you?"

"It's my way out... " Dee shut up. He refused to speak again.

"Cassius, before we leave I want you to position them so they have to look at each other. Put a sound baffle between them so they can't talk. Now, before we tackle my questions again, tell me what you found on The Mountain."

Cassius sketched the story. Storm occasionally interrupted with a question or to make a point. When Cassius mentioned the elderly assassin, he asked, "Sangaree?"

Cassius nodded.

Storm turned to an attractive and frightened Michael Dee. "So that rumor is true. You have been dealing with them. That won't make you any friends, Michael." He shook an admonitory finger. "Go on, Cassius. This is getting interestinger and interestinger."

A minute later Storm muttered, "I've got a feeling I'll be eligible for Social Insurance after I pay your instel bill."

"Possibly. The man's name was Rhafu."

Storm sent a puzzled glance Michael's way. Dee seemed both disappointed and relieved. "It doesn't make sense, Cassius."

"It does. Keep listening." He explained what he had learned from his friend in Luna Command.

"Why would this mystery Sangaree wait till now to get even?"

"I take it he's really a low-key sort. Tries to get everything lined up perfect before he makes his move. He's probably been chipping away at us for a long time."

Storm looked at Dee. "That could explain a lot of things. But not too clearly."

"I've been doing some thinking. It was a long trip out, watch and watch. Not much chance to talk. Mainly, I tried to figure out why a man would want to destroy his brother so bad he would cut a deal with Sangaree. I didn't come up with anything. Each time I thought I had it, I came back to the same thing. The only things you've ever done were in reply to something a Dee did first. Our friend here is a son-of-a-bitch, but in the past he usually took his lumps when he deserved them. And until just lately he was always pretty impersonal about his crap.

"So I went back and thought it through from the beginning. There had to be a clue somewhere.

"I think it started because he wanted to get even with Richard Hawksblood. Including you was a sop for this Deeth creature. In others words, it's not really personal. It's an arrangement. Deeth helps him get Richard. He helps Deeth get you and the Legion."

Storm stared at his brother. Michael looked terribly uncomfortable. "Why the hell would he take up with this Deeth?"

"That's where I had to strain the old logic box. We have to go back to your father and mother to put it together. You know the family stories. He met her on Prefactlas. She was pregnant when they got married. Boris never found out who Michael's father was. Emily wouldn't say. Like that.

"Check my reasoning. Emily was born a Sangaree pleasure girl. Her genetic tagging was distinctly Norbon. We know she spent several years traveling and living with a boy who may have fathered Michael. He vanished completely once your mother moved in with Boris.

"There was a more notorious disappearance at the same time. The grand master of the Prefactlas underworld, a man we called the Serpent. My friend Beckhart tells me the Serpent and this Rhafu are the same guy. Starting to get a picture?"

"I've got one." Storm laid a finger alongside his nose. "And I don't like it. He's not just dealing with them, he is one of them. The son of this Deeth. Implausible on its face, but you found a few crossbreeds on Prefactlas, didn't you?"