Then from somewhere a voice seemed to cut in, the calm voice of an emergency reserve personality fraction. "You are under attack. Activate the reserve plan. Level Five. Use Level Five. Act now. Use Level Five...." Through the miasma of Gool pressure, I felt the hairs stiffen on the back of my neck. All around me the Gool voices raged, a swelling symphony of discord. But they were nothing. Level Five.... There was no turning back. The compulsions were there, acting even as I drew in a breath to howl my terror-- Level Five. Down past the shapes of dreams, the intense faces of hallucination; Level Three; Level Four and the silent ranked memories.... And deeper still-- Into a region of looming gibbering horror, of shadowy moving shapes of evil, of dreaded presences that lurked at the edge of vision.... Down amid the clamor of voiceless fears, the mounting hungers, the reaching claws of all that man had feared since the first tailless primate screamed out his terror in a tree-top: the fear of falling, the fear of heights. Down to Level Five. Nightmare level. * * * * * I groped outward, found the plane of contact--and hurled the weight of man's ancient fears at the waiting Gool--and in their black confining caves deep in the rock of a far world, they felt the roaring tide of fear--fear of the dark, and of living burial. The horrors in man's secret mind confronted the horrors of the Gool Brain Pit. And I felt them break, retreat in blind panic from me-- All but one. The Prime Overlord reeled back with the rest, but his was a mind of terrible power. I sensed for a moment his bloated immense form, the seething gnawing hungers, insatiable, never to be appeased. Then he rallied--but he was alone now. _LINK UP, MASTERS! THE PRIZE IS LOST. KILL THE MAN! KILL THE MAN!_ I felt a knife at my heart. It fluttered--and stopped. And in that instant, I broke past his control, threw the switch. There was the sharp crack of imploding air. Then I was floating down, ever down, and all sensation was far away. _MASTERS! KILL TH_ The pain cut off in an instant of profound silence and utter dark. Then sound roared in my ears, and I felt the harsh grate of the floor against my face as I fell, and then I knew nothing more. * * * * * "I hope," General Titus was saying, "that you'll accept the decoration now, Mr. Granthan. It will be the first time in history that a civilian has been accorded this honor--and you deserve it." I was lying in a clean white bed, propped up by big soft pillows, with a couple of good-looking nurses hovering a few feet away. I was in a mood to tolerate even Titus. "Thanks, General," I said. "I suggest you give the medal to the volunteer who came in to gas me. He knew what he was going up against; I didn't." "It's over, now, Granthan," Kayle said. He attempted to beam, settled for a frosty smile. "You surely understand--"