Unaware of doing so, Guerlan was bellowing exultantly, as he played the Electro-Flash horizontally across another phalanx that had succeeded in gaining the proximity of the Spacer. They had seen him now, and the survivors aimed their atomo-rifles at the treader that sheltered them from the blue fire. But before they could bring their fire into focus, the supernal fire of the electro-flash had decimated them. A few managed to direct the stream of atomic fire on the treader, however, and half of it was a molten mass while the rest was already cherry red and the heat becoming unendurable. Electro-rifles, atomo-pistols, the guns from the giant spacer and a few electro-flash weapons were concentrated on the Intermediates who by sheer force of numbers had gained the center of the Cave. And then they were met by a wall of flesh. From the buildings at the further end and from every vehicle and machine a wall of humanity surged forward, firing ceaselessly, hacking with long-swords and poniards; and the carnage under the brilliant plastilumes was without quarter ... to the death. Slowly, inch by inch, the Intermediates were driven back. Scores had died, and the losses among the defenders were appalling; it seemed as if a Pyrrhic victory was to be the end. And then, like creatures from a nightmare, released from depths of living hell, a motley, ragged, maddened multitude came shrieking, shouting and hurling imprecations from the chaste building Perlac had called the Psycho-clinic. Like avenging furies, they flung themselves at the hard-pressed Intermediates. Wounds did not stop them; atomic-fire left gaping holes in their ranks, around which the survivors raced on. Impervious to pain, and welcoming death, these travesties of human beings fought with the savagery of madness. They were the Amnesiacs. Deprived of the hypnotic drug, partly in possession of their faculties and their memories, they remembered! And remembering, they paid back for the torture of a lifetime! Assailed from every side, the crack Inner Circle battalion of Intermediates split into two halves and strove to meet both fronts. But Guerlan with a cry that would have done credit to a Venusian _Calamar_, snatched the sword from a fallen technician and raced to where the Amnesiacs were tangled in a death struggle. With the electro-flash in his left hand, he stabbed and hacked at exposed limbs and through shattered crysto-plast. And the battle turned slowly, increasing in tempo until it was a rout that pressed the remaining Intermediates into a demoralized race of life. But they were not to escape. Out of all control, all semblance of humanity now, the remaining Amnesiacs were a screaming horror that pursued the quarry and pulled it down like the giant _Calamar_ of Venus pulls down its prey in the virgin forests, until only the moaning wounded and the dead remained on the blood-drenched plastic flooring of the titanic grotto.