"When they discovered why I was angry, they were stunned. I mean they were shocked blue. You see, they made a mistake. They realized that as soon as they'd pried into my mind. They thought we were down here just waiting to kill them as soon as they landed, and naturally they had to cripple us before they dared do it. Then they found out their mistake. They had to kill someone, I'm not sure who, but the bombing of our cities could have been avoided had they known what we were like." "Wait a minute," objected Brave. "Rob, how do you know all this?" Pope looked surprised. "Why, they told me. They had just begun to explain it, hardly got more than a few ideas across, when you and Mac and Alan busted loose. If I'd known what you were planning I'd have stopped you. But now we have made a mistake as bad in its way as theirs." "They told you all this?" asked Win blankly. "Yes. They talked in my mind. Not in English, but it came out that way. It was--pictures, I suppose is the nearest thing to it. Emotions and both abstract and concrete ideas can be transmitted by a good telepathist; and these boys were the best." He shook his head. "It's too bad. God knows where it will all end now." CHAPTER XI They carried the body of Don Mariner down the ramp and laid it on the rock-hard earth of the desolate bowl. Mac, standing next to Alan, said in his ear, "Come aboard again. I want to show you something." Alan turned obediently, although why he should follow Mac's commands--for it had been a command--he wasn't sure; and Win screamed, a high hysterical keening that set Unquote to ululating too. The men all cried out. "What's wrong? What is it?" "Look at your head!" she said to Alan, pointing. Even in that somber moment he could not help laughing. "How?" he said. "I'm not built that way." "Oh, God," said Bill Thihling. "Alan, you took an awful blast in the ear. Why didn't you say something about it?" "What are you talking about?" he said irritably. "I wasn't hit." He put a hand up to his right ear. Brave said, "Look out, boss, you'll hurt it. It's a bad one." He fingered the ear. The tip and lobe, and part of the convolutions of the outer ear, felt like bits of steak which had been burnt in a searing flame; he looked at his fingers, amazed, and saw black flakes of skin and powdery, charcoal-like stuff. That must be the flesh, cooked and carbonized, almost incinerated in the astounding heat of the little fireball. "They did hit me," he said stupidly, staring at his fingers. "I never felt it." Brave, examining the ear without touching it, said, "You'll lose most of that ear, son. It's--_you never felt it_?" "I can't feel it now. I mean, I have sensation in it, I can feel my fingers when they touch it, but it doesn't hurt." Then, just as comprehension of what he was saying began to dawn on him, he heard Mac say again, very urgently, "Get aboard the ship. Jump!" And he jumped.