eyes.

"I hear that you need punishment," he said gently. "This Earthman will learn from it." His tone, almost drab, was casual, with a slow finality.

With pounding heart, Allen stood watching the metal-clad man and woman as Tollgamo quietly confronted them. The terror leaped from their eyes to stamp their faces. And Tollgamo said quietly,

"That is bad to show fear. That forces the punishment to be worse."

At his gesture, a flick of his jeweled fingers, they bared their grey chests. Tollgamo's hands were at his ornamented belt, each of them leveling a little jeweled weapon. The weapons suddenly hissed, and from each of them a tiny violet pencilray of heat-light sprang. Allen gulped as the beams struck the chests of the two victims, and the grey flesh, turned red, then black as Tollgamo wrote a brand of punishment, an insignia of dishonor. The man stood firm, with a hand still at salute, his slit of mouth twisted as he pressed his lips together in an attempt to restrain his cry of pain.

But the woman involuntarily moaned. It was too much for Allen. He gasped,

"Stop that, you damned torturer! They're not the ones who are guilty anyway! They—"

Tollgamo had finished. He snapped off the tiny rays and slowly turned to where Allen had taken a step toward him. And the smile now was gone from his serene face.

"You are not yet trained," he said quietly. "I forgive you for that—so short a time." Another flick of his hand; and Rhool led the stumbling man and woman away.

The smell of the burning flesh drifted off; and Tollgamo, alone here now, fronted the shuddering Allen. Again he was gently smiling.

"You show weakness?" he said. "I am disappointed. So you know who released that Kent Fanning, and Peters' daughter?"

"No I don't. I'm sorry. That was just my desire to stop you doing that to that woman."

Amusement was in Tollgamo's eyes and twitching at his thin grey lips. "So? You would join me, and still try to lie to me?" His gesture dismissed it. "We will talk of that some other time." For a moment he stood pondering. "That girl—that Peters' daughter," he added. "Rhool tells me she is very beautiful. Is that so?" There seemed a twinkle in his inscrutable eyes.

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