I could be certain of arrest, and one of their little interviews now. I really had nothing to lose. Nothing that wasn't already lost--

"Run!" I shouted at the top of my lungs. "They're coming!"

There was a rustling under the bank.

I leaped at Apollo. I leaped hard, with my feet solid, pushing me forward. My shoulder hit him in the midriff. He went down. I scrambled over him and jammed my thumb into his shoulder. He screamed.

There was a buzzing sound and the smell of burned flesh, and a tenth of a second later I felt pain. One of the others had jammed his electric truncheon into the small of my back. It bored in, it burned, and I writhed and yelled. I couldn't help it. I rolled over.

Someone was kicking at me. I grabbed his leg and pulled him down and when he struck the ground I twisted. Another shape blurred toward me--Apollo, recovered and on his feet again. Then buzzing, burned flesh, and the pain this time in the back of my neck. My head swirled. I thrashed, trying to get away. Get away where? That made not much difference. Away, that was all.

The buzzing continued. It was through my flesh now and touching the spine. It would destroy the nerves in a moment. I would be dead--or even worse, a limp cripple, a rag doll.

The smell of roasted flesh and hair was a thick, choking, sickening fog of decay. I couldn't breathe. There was blackness, swirling and concentric, closing in.

I think one of them kicked me in the groin before I lost consciousness. I couldn't be sure. I couldn't be sure of anything.

Coming out. Sound before sight and I heard the low voices. My eyes were already open. Nebulous shapes, now sharpening.

I was in a small room with gleaming metal walls and I was on my back on a sort of table. Three men were in the room with me, standing over me. Apollo ... the bull-necked man ... the man with the nose like a crane.

Apollo was smiling. Pour water over that smile and immediately a film of ice would form.

"A spy," said Apollo, looking into my open eyes. "Another damn spy."

I shook my head. Ridiculous, but that's what I did. The movement pulled at the wound in the back of my neck and sharp pain, starting there, shot through my whole body. I grimaced and 

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