After a brief, organizational pause, she added, “But there was also an impression of discomfort, almost of fear. The only comparison I can make is to the uneasiness a green rider feels mounted on a new and too-spirited horse. He knows he has control, but he isn’t quite sure what the beast may try on him, and he isn’t quite sure just how he’s going to come down--of his own volition, or his mount’s.” “Then you think--” “I think they’re still struggling for control,” Lynne said. “They can’t control the human mind because it’s too tough, too alien, and complex. They failed to take permanent possession even of a wide open TP brain. Now they’ve hit the other extreme--a bovine brain that is beneath their comprehension. They can move in on it, they can blanket it--but they can’t be sure it won’t kick off the covers. “Not one of those beasts wanted to stampede the way they did. But once I triggered the beast-brain in the leader, and Joanna cracked her whip, he had to obey steer-instinct and flee. And the others had to follow him, zombie control or not.” “What’s this leading up to?” Radchev asked. He had pulled out a plastopipe, and was packing it with coarse Martian shag. Lynne caught a wry longing for good Earth-tobacco, inhibited by a stern resolve to fulfill his obligations as Agricultural Director of Mars by using only the home-grown product. She checked her amusement out of courtesy, and said, “There’s another factor that may prove vital--_farbishly_ so. In their disembodied form the zombies went streaking off at the first threat of danger. That’s why we haven’t been able to put them out of business for keeps. But this time, they may be in trouble. I’m not at all sure they can get out of these bovine bodies they’ve taken over.” “So what do you propose?” Martin Juarez asked. “We’re going to try to put the zombies to sleep,” said Lynne quietly. “I’ve already sent out a call for help to my TP pals from Nampura Depot. We’re going to set up a TP brain-team on Patagonia Station and use mass-hypnosis on the whole _farbish_ herd.” “You’re going to hypnotize the zombies?” Joanna was appalled. Lynne shook her head and smiled. “Hardly!” she said. “We don’t even know that they’ll react to our suggestions. We’re going to give the cattle immunity to possession.” Radchev and Juarez exchanged glances. Then the director rose and took her small hand in his. “Young lady,” he said, “you seem to have done it again.” “Better save your congratulations until the job is completed,” she told him. “We may not even get out of the batter’s box.” Lynne and her colleagues were waiting at the trim Woomera Station landing field when the newcomers’ Nampura Depot runabout landed, and her twin brother and Rana Willis got out. Rana, looking irrepressible as usual, went into a bowlegged stance and said, “Well, pardner, how’s the roundup?”