He searched for a catch, realized there would be none, for this was a ground floor, and the Gharrians would leave no openings through which an attack could be made. Calmly, he beat at the pane with his pistol butt, bruising his hand, making absolutely no impression. "Will it break?" Lura called softly. "No. But it may cut." Trent chose the sharpest of the tools, bore down with all his weight. The squeal of metal on plastic keened high, setting his teeth on edge; and then the sound had passed too high for him to hear. He finished the stroke, bent close, then straightened in defeat. There was not the slightest of scratches on the plastic window. "Kim!" Lura cried, and he raced to her side. Even as he reached her, the Gharrian began to putrefy. It had died during the few moments Trent had tried to break the window; and its monstrosity of a body was already beginning to rot in upon itself like a blighted spider caught in a flame. "Damn!" Trent swore softly. "I probably squeezed too hard. Come." He led the way toward the door through which they had come, lifted the single bar. He smiled tiredly, gamely, was warmed by the unquenchable courage that flamed in her bearing. "Ready?" he asked, threw open the door at her wordless nod. Facing them from ten feet away, single eyes emotionlessly watching, were three of the robot-Gharrians. VI "Run!" Trent snapped, threw himself to one side, pausing for a fraction of a second to permit Lura to dart past him. Then, even before the Gharrians could move, they were darting through the side door, flung instantly open by Trent's driving hand. He slammed the door, slammed the single bar shut, then whirled to follow the girl. A soundless gasp of incredible awe came from his throat, and he froze motionless. Kimball Trent went dashing forward, smashed the single darting pink monstrosity, as it raced toward a robot, with his heel, then stopped, and watched the incredible thing that filled the entire center of the room. It was like a monster fishbowl, great cables snaking to atomic motors that hummed with quiet power. Colors glowed and played and flickered in the greenish liquid that filled the bowl, and the liquid bubbled softly within itself. But the things that brought the sickness to Trent's and Lura's hearts and minds were the things that bobbed in the liquid. They were brains, some large, some shrunken in upon themselves, each attached to fine wires that led to grids at the center of the bowl. Larger wires ran from the grids to the sides of the bowl, slipped through and dropped to small platforms upon which rested the spider monsters who ruled the world. "Life eaters!" Trent whispered. "They live on the lives and brains of the people they kill."