"He's watching us on TV," Illya gasped.
"Run," Solo said. He stayed close to the wall, sprinting toward that white-doored exit which seemed to recede the way it might in a bad dream.
"Run faster, gentlemen." Nesbitt's voice mocked them. "A little exercise, and then I shall stop you as I wish."
"Stay close to the wall," Solo warned Illya.
Illya nodded and sidestepped, but he was already too late.
They both heard the rising hiss. It was as if Illya had run into an invisible wall. The beam struck him and he stopped running, slowing, taking long steps and then halting as if paralyzed.
Solo leaped into the inset door nearest him as the hiss rose, approaching like an angry wasp.
The beam lashed at him and Solo put all his weight against the door, thrusting his way into it.
He toppled into a brightly lighted room and the door swung shut behind him.
He landed hard on his knees, and lifted his head slowly at the old chattering sound that over whelmed him.
His eyes widened at the sight of the set faces, the empty eyes, the meaningless chatter. The people sat at long tables suspended from the ceiling. They didn't look at each other, or at anything. They chattered, but it was less meaningful than squealing monkey noises in a tree.
Solo got to his feet, repelled and shaken by the sight of these mindless creatures.
He shook his head, retreated toward the door.
Faces turned his way, but not one pair of eyes actually focused on him. The eyes were like milky marbles and light reflected from them.
Solo wheeled around and grabbed at the door. Again there was no inside handle, and the door was locked securely.
Solo stared around helplessly. There was no other exit from this dormitory of the mindless. The only windows were set high in the walls.
Solo sagged against the door. The chattering went on, but he no longer listened.
From the intercom, Dr. Nesbitt's voice mocked him. "I expected you and Mr. Kuryakin to join our mindless ones eventually, Mr. Solo, but not so quickly. What's wrong, my dear fellow? You don't look overjoyed."
Exhaling heavily, Solo sagged against the barred door.
The voices rose chattering, excited, wildly agitated by the sound of the doctor's voice on the intercom.
Napoleon Solo did not look at them.
TWO
SOLO FELT the door shiver. He recognized the sound: an electric impulse had activated the lock. He stepped away and the padded door was shoved open.
Two expressionless guards stepped into the room. They were armed with a gun that had a base like a small cannon, but which was obviously aluminum light. The barrel of the gun tapered to the mouth, which suddenly lighted up.
Solo toppled back, thinking they had subdued him with a portable light gun.
The chattering raged, but none of the people at the tables moved. The guards lifted Napoleon Solo, half-carrying him through the corridor toward Nesbitt's office.
There was no sign of Illya Kuryakin in the corridor. Solo felt ill, searching for him.
Strength had returned to his legs and arms by the time the guards led him inside Nesbitt's white-walled office.
Bikini jumped up and ran to him.
She pressed herself against him. Solo gritted his teeth to keep from falling under the pressure of her weight.
"Oh, Solo. He won't look at me," Bikini said. "He won't listen to me. He acts as if I don't exist."
"I don't think any of us exist for him very much, Bikini," Solo said.
"But he's known me since I was a baby. He's my godfather. He was at my house all the time."
"I don't think he cares to re member that." Solo looked up at Nesbitt behind his desk. He spoke over the top of Bikini's dark hair, "Where is Illya, Doctor?"
Nesbitt smiled blandly. "You'll join him soon enough, Mr. Solo. Need I say any more than that?"
Bikini turned, but remained in side the circle of Solo's arms. She stared up at Nesbitt. "Please, where is my father?"
Solo stared up at Nesbitt, waiting for him to answer. But Nesbitt merely shrugged.
Solo knew he owed Bikini the truth about her father. But the truth was too brutal for her at this moment.
Just now he could not bring himself to say the words, your father is dead, Bikini.
He stood, watching Nesbitt.
The doctor's good eye gazed at him unblinkingly, the smile set. "I'm afraid my plans for you have been altered—by your own actions. I'd hoped to be able to allow the three of you to leave this place after undergoing a series of minor treatments for the removal of recent memory."
He shook his head. "I can't do that now. I'm sorry. The risk is too great."
Solo spoke coldly to Bikini. "What Dr. Nesbitt means is that Illya and I know your father is dead, and how he was killed—and that 'memory' removal is too risky because it doesn't work, but death does."
"My father," Bikini whispered. She pressed her face hard upon Napoleon's shoulder.
He touched her hair, gently, holding her. He felt her heated tears against his shoulder. Somehow it gave the world a sense of sanity that a girl could still cry for her father in this place.
It seemed less a nightmare.
Nesbitt's voice cut across Solo's thoughts. "Death. Yes, death works. Death is useful here, too, Solo. Professor Connor's death was useful—"
"You told us you didn't know about his death," Solo raged.
Dr. Nesbitt shrugged as if reminding him that nothing could matter less than what he said to them, or to anyone from the world of his past.
"He was sentenced to death by our highest court," Nesbitt said. "There was nothing I could do except see that he was executed in the way that would be most useful to us. Yes, even death must be useful."
Solo shook his head, hearing the doctor's words, but unable to believe a man could have so far receded from any human feelings of remorse, guilt, love or regret.
Dr. Nesbitt regretted nothing except time lost from his experiments.
"I'm sure our deaths will serve you in some useful purpose," Solo said bitterly.
"When the time comes. Meantime, you and Mr. Kuryakin will work for us as mindless slaves—made mindless by light, Mr. Solo. And as for Miss Connors, I can use her body in my experiments with my plants—"
"Dr. Nesbitt. Ivey!" Bikini cried out, tormented. "What's happened to you? Once you loved my father and me."
"It's no good, Bikini," Scio said. "He's gone crackers—"
"You think I'm insane, Solo?" Dr. Nesbitt raged.
Solo shrugged. "I suspected it all along. I'm convinced, now that you've decided to use a body like hers as plant food—"
"Mr. Solo, I assure you that only the plants are important here. They are mutations, grown from the most ordinary jungle carnivorous species, from those pitcher plants devouring flies and insects to what you saw in that hothouse—"
"Oh, Ivey," Bikini wailed. "Once you were the most beloved man in—"
"A fool girl like that, what does she know?" Dr. Nesbitt said to Solo, still refusing to speak directly to the daughter of his old associate. "Does she know of the horror of being stared at like a freak because of my disfigured face?"