The senior man scowled in indecision. "Take him along. Or lock him up. Or kill him."

"You don't know what the Baron wanted me for," Miles interrupted instantly. "Better take me along till you find out."

"He wanted you for the other one," said the senior man, with an indifferent glance down at him. Little, naked, half-healed, with his hands bound behind him, the guards clearly did not perceive him as a threat. Too right. Hell.

After a brief muttered conference, the junior man pushed him along, and they began as rapid and methodical a tour of the facility as Miles would have wished to make himself. They found two of their red-and-black uniformed comrades, dead. A mysterious pool of blood snaked across a corridor from wall to wall. They found another body, fully dressed as a senior tech, in a shower, the back of his head crushed with some blunt object. On descending levels they found more signs of struggle, of looting, and of by-no-means-random destruction, comconsoles and equipment smashed.

Had it been a slave revolt? Some power struggle among factions? Revenge? All three simultaneously? Was the murder of Ryoval its cause, or its goal? Had there been a mass evacuation, or a mass killing? At every corner, Miles braced himself for a scene of carnage.

The lowest level had a laboratory with half a dozen glass-walled cells lining one end. From the smell, some experiment had been left cooking far too long. He glanced into the cells and swallowed.

They had been human, once, those lumps of flesh, scar tissue, and growths. They were now . . . culture dishes of some kind. Four had been female, two male. Some departing tech, as an act of mercy, had neatly cut each one's throat. He eyed them desperately, his face pressed to the glass. Surely they were all too large to have been Mark. Surely such effects could not have been achieved in a mere five days. Surely. He did not want to enter the cells for a closer examination.

At least it explained why more of Ryoval's slaves did not try to resist. There was an air of awful ecomony about it. Don't like your work in the bordello, girl? Sick of the boredom and brutality of being a guard, man? How would you like to go into scientific research? The last stop for any would-be Spartacus among Ryoval's human possessions. Bel was right. We should have nuked this place the last time we were here.

The guards gave the cells a brief glance, and pressed on. Miles hung back, seized by inspiration. It was worth a try. . . .

"Shit!" Miles hissed, and jumped.

The guards spun around.

"That . . . that man in there. He moved. I think I'm going to vomit."

"Can't have." The senior guard stared through the transparent wall at a body which lay with its back to them.

"He couldn't possibly have witnessed anything from in there, could he?" said Miles. "For God's sake, don't open the door."