Overlord Of Colony Eight By Robert Silverberg Reese returned to the colony expecting a pleasant reunion; instead he found friends ready to hunt him down like an alien beast.... [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy October 1957 Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Colony Eight on the _Damballa_ was a huddle of low plastic domes set in a clearing of the jungle. It was also the most welcome sight Jim Reese had seen in a month--the month since he'd quarreled with Lois and struck out into the jungle alone. He had covered close to a thousand miles--all the way to Colony Seven, the nearest of the 10 colonies Earth had planted on the jungle world. Now he was returning, hoping his month's absence had healed the wounds he and Lois had caused each other. She had had time to think things over. So had he--and he still loved her. He saw one of the natives straggling through the jungle toward him and grinned. It was drunken old Kuhli, a native who had been accidentally made a drug addict by a well-meaning Terran doctor. Kuhli lived in a murky fog and hung around Colony Eight because he had no place else to go. Reese was happy to see a familiar face, even Kuhli's. He hailed the alien. "Kuhli! Kuhli, you old devil! Where are you going?" He knew the native rarely ventured into the jungle any more; his delicate sense of direction had long since been blunted by drugs. The alien whirled uncertainly and fixed his bleary green eyes on Reese. "Trouble, Earthman," he wheezed. "Go away. Away. Big trouble." Reese frowned. "What are you talking about?" Kuhli came near and rocked unsteadily on the pads of his seven-toed feet. "Everyone crazy there. Not safe. Trouble, Earthman." He moaned softly to himself. "Sad things happening." Reese glared at the alien; grasped him by his scaly shoulders and shook him. "Speak up, Kuhli! Is this just another pipedream of yours or is there something wrong in the Colony? I have to know!" The alien whined piteously. "Don't hurt Kuhli. Don't hurt. Trouble, Earthman!" Reese noticed a pack slung over the creature's back. "What's in here?" "Mine! Mine! Don't touch!" Curiosity impelled Reese to turn the alien around and peer in the bulging pack while the old man gibbered in fear. Reese whistled. The pack was brim-full of ampoules of benzolurethrimine, the pain-killing drug to which Kuhli had been made an addict. The alien had stumbled into the colony one day, his chest slashed open by the talons of a _khaljek_-bird; the colony doctor had administered the drug to ease his agony and only then discovered benzolurethrimine was a powerful narcotic for the aliens. "Where'd you get all this stuff?" Reese demanded. "Took it. Needed it. Not going back to Colony any more."