rubbery surface of a street, being hurried, pushed along it toward some unknown destination. His captors bullied him along between tall, smooth buildings that seemed to be constructed of solid expanses of plastic, broken only by the unrevealing doors and windows.

The people in the streets didn't jeer at or mock him. They only looked at him as one might look at a stinking, stray dog or simply ignored him completely. That was worse.

He was suddenly pushed into a flight of steps and stumbled up them, in through broad doors. There were more steps and endless halls and elevators that took you up or down with no sensation of motion and finally a room, a laboratory of some sort it seemed.

The one who had tried to question Eberly aboard the ship had followed along. He spoke to the man they found in the room. He might have been speaking mainly for Eberly's benefit, because he spoke in what he called English.

"This one is in need to explain some things, but is not willing to say those thing," he sneered. "You are for making him hear what is say to him and to reply with not insults. Make it at once."

Eberly was feeling a little ill. A diet of U-235, he realized, was not so good. He just couldn't help it. He belched loudly.

Eyes turned toward him; puzzled eyes with questions in them.

"What is that big word you are make? What it does mean?"

"It has been called a 'burp'," Eberly said. "As far as you are concerned, you can think of it as the worst insult you know of." The Uranium capsule was a hard lump in his stomach. He didn't know much about Uranium—whether it was some effect of the Uranium or just the indigestibility of it—but he was feeling sicker by the minute. Pain stabbed across his chest and he burped again.

Evidently, the space men could think of some pretty raw insults, judging from the expressions on their faces.

"Silent, dog you!" he shouted, purple-faced. Then, to his two bullies, "Make him tight with chains to the wall! He must be teach not to make burp of us and to give true talk when told! When I am return he is to be made talking!" He slammed out of the room as if he were ready to take off for America without his ship.

A number of the space men had crowded into the room to watch the torture of an Earthman. Their eyes, small 

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