Ragged patches of light floated past David Starr.  Slowly he became aware of a tremendous tingling all about him and a separate pressure on his back.  The back pressure resolved itself into the fact that he was lying face up on a hard mattress.  The tingling he knew to be the aftermath of a stun-gun, a weapon whose radiation worked upon the nerve centers at the base of the brain.

Before light became coherent, before he was thoroughly aware of his surroundings, he felt his shoulders being shaken and the distant sting of sharp slaps on his cheeks.  The light washed into his open eyes and he brought his tingling arm up to ward off the next slap.

It was Bigman leaning over him, his little rabbity face with its round snub nose nearly touching his.  He said, "By Ganymede, I thought they finished you for good."

David brought himself up to an aching elbow.  He said, "It almost feels as if they did.  Where are we?"

"In the farm lockup.  It's no use trying to get out, either.  The door's locked; the windows are barred."  He looked depressed.

David felt under his arms.  They had removed his blasters.  Naturally!  So much was to be expected.  He said, "Did they stun you, too, Bigman?"

Bigman shook his head. "Zukis horizontaled me with the gun butt."  He fingered a region of his skull with gingerly distaste.  Then he swelled, "But I nearly broke his arm first."

There was the sound of footsteps outside the door.  David sat up and waited.  Hennes entered, and with him there came an older man, with a long, tired-looking face set off by faded blue eyes under bushy gray eyebrows that seemed fixed in a permanent furrow.  He was dressed in city costume, which was much like that of Earth.  He even lacked the Martian hip boots.

Hennes spoke to Bigman first.  "Get out to the chowhouse and the first time you sneeze without permission you'll be broken in two."

Bigman scowled, waved to David with an "I'll be seeing you, Earthman," and swaggered out with a clattering of boots.

Hennes watched him leave and locked the door behind him.  He turned to the man with the gray eyebrows.  "This is the one, Mr. Makian.  He calls himself Williams."

"You took a chance stunning him, Hennes.  If you had killed him, a valuable lead might have gone with the canal-dust."

Hennes shrugged.  "He was armed.  We could take no chances.  In any case, he's here, sir."

They were discussing him, David thought, as though he weren't there or were just another inanimate part of the bed.

Makian turned to him, his eyes hard.  "You, there, I own this ranch.  Over a hundred miles in any direction is all Makian.  I say who is to be free and who is to be in prison; who works and who starves; even who lives and who dies.  Do you understand me?"

"Yes," said David.

"Then answer frankly, and you'll have nothing to fear.  Try to hide anything and we'll have it out of you one way or another.  We may have to kill you.  Do you still understand me?"

"Perfectly."

"Is your name Williams?"

"It's the only name I will give on Mars."

"Fair enough.  What do you know about food poisoning?"

David swung his feet off the bed.  He said, "Look, my sister died over an afternoon snack of bread and jam.  She was twelve years old, and lay there dead with the jam still on her face.  We called the doctor.  He said it was food poisoning and told us not to eat anything in the house till he came back with certain analytical equipment.  He never came back.