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painfully on the thigh, and he grunted at the blow and staggered off balance, his body automatically shifting his weight to keep him from going down.
    Ringer isn’t the sort of opponent you can give partial attention to, but I couldn’t afford to forget about Val. I swung out of the kick I’d given Ringer just in time to kick a second time at Val, who had moved up much too close and was reaching for me. Val was obviously expecting the kick, though. His hand grabbed for my foot, caught it and twisted, sending me down hard on my right shoulder.
    The next move was to roll fast to keep from getting pinned or stomped, but slamming into the floor, even with the carpeting to cushion the impact, caused the memory of agony to flash through my body. The breath was driven from my lungs, leaving them to struggle with vacuum, and a deep, blurry gong boomed for an instant in my ears. The reactions were only split-second, not even lasting long enough to really be felt, but they lasted long enough to throw off my timing. I began to move as soon as it was possible, but it was also too late. Val and Ringer were both already on top of me, holding me down with their weight.
    I struggled against being held, trying to fight my way free, but the adrenaline was gone and so was most of my strength. I panted and sweated from the few seconds of exertion, cursing the two weeks of inactivity that had so destroyed my endurance, but the men holding me weren’t even breathing hard. Val had his arms wrapped around my arms from behind, his hands clamped to my wrists, and he moved his head closer to put his lips next to my ear.
    “You’d better tell him what he wants to hear,” he murmured in my ear. “You’ll be saving yourself more than you know.”
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I answered, determined to see my plan through. There were only a limited number of things Ringer could do to make me talk, and if I could hold out long enough that doctor might make an early call on the security people. Ringer knew as well as I did that the worse shape I was in when the security people saw me, the more likely they would be to ignore anything he had to say. The safety of his own neck depended on the safety of mine, and that was the best way to have it.
    There were no more words out of either of them after that, just actions. I was forced to my feet between them, held close by their bodies to keep me from being able to move against them at all, and then my steps were directed by them toward the bed.
    Val still held my arms and wrists and Ringer had me around the waist, and there was no question about whether or not I would go. Val was hurting my wrists through the bandages, but that was only a minor consideration. Ringer knew as many ways of causing pain without leaving marks as I did, and I began to wonder which of them he would use. I could stand the pain of most of them, but there were a few…
    I must have been too engrossed in grisly guesswork to pay as much attention as I should have to what was happening around me. One minute I was being forced toward the bed and the next I was already there, but not down on it. Val was seating himself on a corner, Ringer was letting go of me, and then I was off my feet and face down across Val’s lap.
    I shouted, “No!” and really began to struggle, but it was already too late. Val had forced my wrists behind me, holding them one-handed, while his other hand kept me from kicking my way free. I could feel his leg against my stomach, his hand warm against my bare thigh, and I cursed at the fates for doing this to me again.
    “Do you have it?” Val asked Ringer as soon as he was settled on his corner of the bed.
    “Right here,” Ringer answered. I turned my head to see what they were talking about, then pulled so hard that Val had to tighten his grip on my wrists to hold onto me. Ringer needed his answers rather badly, so he’d supplied Val with a hard, nasty-looking hairbrush. And that also