“Jim! Jim, one of these men here in the boat with us—” Ren’s voice held a quiver of fear. “He’s, Jim, I can receive thoughts now . . . like Dolores did from a distance. It seemed, just a little while ago, that I was getting Len’s thoughts. He was triumphant, exulting over something. But it was gone. Then I—” “You get the thoughts of someone here in the boat?” “Yes. I guess so. Someone . . . the thought came to me that he called himself Talon. I just now got it again. Talon. He’s been studying thoughts from me. Putting them into my language. He’s doing it now. It’s very easy for him, studying my thoughts, our words . . . my words to you now. He can understand them.” “Hear us now?” “Yes. Or hear the thought of our words. We can’t escape! Can’t do anything secretly! He’s laughing at us. He—” Jim saw one of the heads raise itself up on its hands. Its shriveled body hung limp, the body with the ornate cross on its breast. The arms bent, then straightened with a snap; the head bounded a foot or two in the air, landed again on its hands, and again leaped. It was hitching itself the length of the boat, its shriveled body trailing after it. One of the giant, hairy brutes of men moved aside to let it pass. Jim whispered, “It’s coming!” A revulsion of horror swept him—a repugnance to have this great bloated head come near him. He strove to master the horror. This was a man. Strange of form, but a living, mortal being. A man—an enemy. Nothing supernatural, not gruesome, merely strange, an enemy with whom he had to cope. Jim sat up abruptly. His shoulder touched Ren’s. From down the boat the bloated head came hitchingly forward. A few feet from Jim and Ren it stopped, rested with a slight swaying upon the tiny body hunched under it. Jim stared into a huge, convex face: round green eyes, holes, a circular rim of them, for nostrils, a wide mouth, thin-lipped. The mouth seemed almost a human feature; it was smiling. A soft, suave voice said, “I . . . Talon.” And corrected itself, “I mean . . . I am Talon.” It seemed to Jim in that instant that with those few spoken words the thing itself had removed most of the horror with which its outward aspect invested it. A sense of relief swept over Jim. His tenseness relaxed. He said slowly: “What do you want of us, Talon?” “Yes . . . Talon.” His arm had a hand, with a sheaf of broad, flat fingers. He pointed to the ornament hanging on the chest of his shrunken body. “Talon . . . leader of my people.” He spoke haltingly, groping with the unfamiliar words, and carefully, as though to avoid error. “Called Talon. You . . . lie quiet and soon my words are more. I study. Lie quiet . . . until I speak again.” He gestured. “Lie quiet, or—” Another more vehement gesture. It embraced Jim and Ren. Jim understood the threat. The voice repeated very calmly, “You had better lie down . . . _now_!” The eyes seemed leaping pools of green fire.