He was the thinnest of the three too--so thin and tall that she automatically found herself thinking of him as Tall-Thin. The light came from a tiny glowing tube which Tall-Thin was clasping in hands as small and brightly shining as the penpoints in her school stationery set. She knew by the way she felt that Melvin wanted to scream too--to scream and struggle and fight back. But he couldn't even move his head and shoulders. He was all stiffened up and he turned as she'd seen him do in dreams when they'd been quarreling and she had wanted to punish him for making faces at her--to punish him by skipping away across the room and laughing because he couldn't follow her. She was sorry now she'd ever dreamed of Melvin in that way even when he was mean to her. She felt even sorrier when she heard her brother shriek. It wasn't much of a shriek--just a thin little cry that came out muffled. Melvin had almost lost the power of speech and it was awful to watch him trying to move his lips. He was completely turned now, staring down at the little men, and his eyes were shrieking for him. "Don't make them mad, Melvin!" Mary Anne pleaded. "They'll kill you." Instantly Tall-Thin turned and trained his gaze on Mary Anne, his face twitching with impatience. "Dealing with the immature is a nuisance," he complained and Mary Anne heard the words clearly even though she knew they were not meant for her. Deep inside her head she could hear Tall-Thin speaking to his companions. As if sensing something disturbing in that the second-tallest of the three spoke in reply--spoke for the first time. "They'll hear everything we say. It would be so much more convenient if we could talk to them without giving them the power to hear in return every word we utter." "That cannot be avoided, Rujit," replied Tall-Thin. "When we read their minds we awaken extra-sensory faculties which would ordinarily remain dormant in them." "And rudimentary." "And rudimentary." Tall-Thin agreed. "It's like stimulating a low-grade energy circuit with a high-grade charge. The low-grade circuit will remain supercharged for a brief period." "Would it not be safer to kill them at once?" "Unnecessary killing is always unpleasant," Tall-Thin said. "We should be emotionally prepared for it," Rujit countered. "We would not have survived and become great as a race if we had not conquered all such squeamishness in ourselves. We must be prepared to nullify all opposition by instant drastic action--the most drastic action available to us at any given time." Rujit paused for an instant to transfix Tall-Thin with an accusing stare. Then he went on quickly, "In an emergency it is often very difficult to decide instantly how necessary an action may be. To take pleasure in killing unnecessarily is therefore a survival attribute of a very high order."