"I'm as all right as can be expected, Steve. But they've been running me through all sorts of emotional mazes. My clothing is torn and they don't care about it. My skin is torn and bruised. They don't care about that, either. They'll run us down. Did you notice all the other creatures here? Some of their bones are broken--if they have bones--and they've never been set. They're bruised and bloody and infected and the parasites don't care! Why should they, they can get new bodies? But Steve--oh, Steve, I've never felt so unclean in all my life and it's just as if I've been defiled and--" "Take it easy, Teejay. Thinking like that won't help." "I hate them. Oh, I hate them. I--" "Listen. I want you to concentrate like that. Hate weakens them. Remember how the animals aboard the _Frank Buck_ died? Well, since our emotions are so much stronger than the parasites, maybe, maybe--" "You mean it could work in reverse?" "I don't know." "You want me to try, darling?" "Yes--no! We can't do it now. If it works, we'd still be leaving a hundred men here. They're doomed, Teejay. We're all doomed unless we can do something about it, and soon. But at night they sleep. Yeah, they sleep at night! If we can contact the others, and make a concentrated effort of it, using the telepathic powers of the parasites--" "Shh! That's enough, Steve. My friend here is getting up. I can feel him stirring inside my head. Shh, later!" At the end, hope had made Teejay her old spunky self again. But when Steve's own master awakened, that hope seemed mighty slim indeed. Each night they managed to contact two or three of the others, and the word was supposed to be passed on. Finally, it was arranged. The night for action was decided upon, and for some few of them it would be a gamble, for there was no guarantee that all the parasites would be asleep. Once the attempt was made, however, there would be no turning back. Whoever was left behind--was left behind. Provided the plan worked at all. * * * * * The creature was asleep again. "I hate you," Steve said quietly. Silence. "_I hate you._" He thought it now, thought it with all his being--and somehow he could sense the thought was being reinforced as scores of men concentrated on it around the city. The mind within him stirred sluggishly, but he pushed it under again. Hate, hate, hate. Hadn't the creature said it could kill them both? A gamble. Everything was a gamble. Naturally the parasite would say that. Steve began to sweat, physically. He was weak and the muscles of his arms and legs trembled. His mind found the strange telepathic channel of the parasite, traveled inward along it--with hatred. That, at least, was easy. He did _hate_ the creature so thoroughly and so completely that the feeling pushed everything else from his mind. A concert of hatred, all over the city. And slumbering masters who might or might not awaken.