Hindarf pulled Forry onto the raft. A man handed Hindarf a paperin a sealed package. He opened it and took out the paper and spread it out. Underthe lightsthey had brought, with the only sound the slight splashing of the menand heavybreathing, they studied the plates which constituted the ceiling ofthis chamber. The plates were being removed by two men standing on theladder.

There was a great boom from above them. The shock was sudden and savage. The platform rose into the airabove the water and the men on it went with it. Dirt fell in on all sides, striking themen and sending up gouts of water and chunking into the raft, whichwas tiltingto one side and then to the other.

But the walls did not fall in, though the plates were bellied outor buckled and broken here and there. The booming noise had come and gone, likean overhead explosion. All was quiet except for the loud slap-slap of theseesawing wateragainst the sides of the pit and the groaning of the platform movingup anddown.

Hindarf was the first to break the silence. He said, "That waseither an earthquake or the house is starting to slide. In either case, we goahead as planned. We'll be out of this place and into the house in a fewseconds."

The two men on the ladder had clung to it as it had threatened totoppleover. Now they went to work and removed plates to make a wide openingabove them.

Forry wondered why they worked so slowly. He felt like clawingthe platesout and anything else that stood between him and the open air. But hemanaged tosubdue the panic. After all, as he had already told himself, he wasupholdingthe honor of Earth.

Hindarf climbed the ladder and began to chip away at the dirtwith a small pick. Forry moved to one side to avoid the falling matter, which camedown in big chunks. His guide, pointing at the diagram, said, "We aredirectly below thefloor of the room where Childe should be held."

"How did you get hold of the diagram?" Forry said.

"From the city archives. The Ogs thought that they had removedall of the plans of the house, which was built long ago. But there was one planwhich had been misfiled. We paid for a very expensive research, but it wasworth it."

"Why do you think Childe is in the room above?"

"The Ogs have field important prisoners there before, both Tocand Earthling. We could be wrong, but even so we'll be inside the house."

Hindarf quit scraping away the dirt and was listening through adevice, oneend of which was placed against the stone. Then he put the device ina pocket ofhis suit and began to work on the stone with a drill. Forry listenedcarefullybut could hear no sound from it. His guide told him that it usedsupersonicwaves.

The removal of several blocks of stone took some time. Hindarf and another man stood side by side on the narrow ladder and eased the block downbetween them, and this was passed slowly between men standing together on the ladder. Then Hindarf listened again. He looked puzzled as he put the

device away. "There's a strange swishing and splashing noise," he whispered. He took the large square of metal which a man handed him and

screwed it to the underside of the floor. A wire led from one side of the metal square to asmall black metal box held by a man on the raft.

Everybody except Hindarf got off the ladder and stood to oneside. Hindarf nodded to the man holding the box, who pressed a button on its top.

The metal square and the section of floor within it fell downpast Hindarf.

A solid column of water roared through the opening. It knockedHindarf off the ladder, struck the small platform, sprayed out over the raft, andsweptthose standing on the platform into the well or onto the raft.

Forry Ackerman was one of those swept off.

Pao said, "Your wife died three months ago."

"You killed her!" Childe raged. "You killed her! Did you tortureher before you killed her?"

"No," Pao said. "We did not want to hurt her, because we meant tobring herto you when you were ready for us. But she died."

"How?"

"It was an accident. Vivienne and Plugger and your wife wereforming atriangle. Plugger was stimulating Vivienne with his tongue in hermouth, yourwife was being stimulated with Plugger's cock in her mouth, andVivienne and your wife had their cunts almost touching each other, face to face asit were. Gilles was up your wife's cunt or alternating between her cunt andher asshole, I believe."

"I can believe that Sybil might engage in some daisy chains," Childe said. "But I can't believe that she'd let Vivienne even get near her. Thatsnake-thingwould horrify her."

"When Plugger is charging you, you get excited enough to do a lotof thingsyou wouldn't otherwise do," Pao said. "I have no reason to lie toyou. The truthis that Gilles was driven out of his mind--he doesn't have much, anyway, just apiece of brain tissue in that little skull, he doesn't even know hisown name and his talking is automatic and unintelligible even to him...Anyway, he went out of his head, too stimulated by Plugger, I suppose, and bit yourwife's rectum. He tore out some blood vessels, and she bled to death. Shekept moving and responding to Plugger's electric discharges even after she died, which was why neither Plugger nor Vivienne knew what was going on."

Childe felt sick. He sat down on the edge of the bed, his headbent. Pao stood silently.

After a few minutes, Childe looked up at Pao. The man's face wassmooth and expressionless. His yellow skin, thin-lipped down-drooping mouth, thin curved nose, high cheekbones, slanting black eyes, and black hair with itswidow's peakmade him look like a smooth-shaven Fu Manchu. Yet the man--the Og, rather--must be very anxious behind that glossy sinister face. He could not usethe usual methods to force cooperation from Childe. Even the worst of torturescould not extract the power for Grailing or star voyaging from a Captain. Underpain, theCaptain was incapable of performing his duties.

Childe thought of Vivienne, Plugger, Gilles de Rais, and thecreature that had metamorphosed itself to look like Sybil. What was its name? Brueghel?

O'Brien had left. Had he gone out to kill Breughel? Pao swallowed and said, "What can I do to make this up to you?" What he meant was, "What kind of revenge do you wish?" And he was

thinking, must be thinking, that Childe would hold him responsible for Sybil's death.

Childe said, "I only require that the snake-thing be killed." Pao looked relieved, but he said, "Vivienne will die, too!" Childe bit his lip. The revenge he was planning did not involve

killinganybody except the snake-thing, and that thing could not be called anentity. Not a sentient entity, anyway. He wanted the thing killed, but hewanted Vivienne alive to appreciate what had happened to her and the otherOgs.

"Bring Vivienne in," he said.

Pao left and a few minutes later returned with Vivienne behind him. O'Brien and several others also entered.

"I need a butcher's cleaver and bandages and ointment andmorphine," Childesaid.

Vivienne turned pale. She alone seemed to grasp what he intendedto do. "Oh, yes, and bring a wooden stool and a pair of long pliers," he

said. Trembling, Vivienne sat down in a chair. "Stand up and take your clothes off," Childe saidShe rose and slowly removed her clothing. "Now you can sit down there," he said. O'Brien returned with the tools ordered. Childe said, "I saw the film where you bit off Colben's cock with

your falseiron teeth. So don't plead with me." "I am not pleading," she said. "However, it was not I who bit hiscock off." "I won't argue. You are capable of doing it; you probably havedone that, and far worse, to others."