Then Underwood became aware of a slow stirring upon the floor. The last Disciple he had shot was not dead. The lips twisted in a snarl of hate. "Fools!" The Disciple spat out. Blood poured from between his lips. "Do you suppose you can block the Great One? The human race waited ten thousand years for this savior. Man shall become the greatest in all the Universe with him as leader. Pay homage to the Great One as all the Galaxies shall pay homage to us!" Underwood said, "Why?" "Because we are the greatest!" He looked at the man curiously. It was as if the knowledge of semantics did not exist, yet for twelve hundred years semanticists had slowly been prying loose the ancient false extensions that cluttered men's thinking and dwarfed their concepts. Demarzule had wiped out all of that merely by his presence. Underwood found himself wondering why he should be at all concerned with the matter. * * * * * He knew, however, that as a member of the human race he had to keep on hoping that the course of evolution would lead it to something greater than constant strife and insecurity. He had been blind when he had tried to escape. There was no escape; he saw that very clearly now. A sudden sound in the corridor alerted his senses. His gun moved slightly to cover the entrances. Then Terry burst into view with the containers of chemicals from the surgical lab. * * * * * "Made it," he said. "Any trouble here?" "No, just one revived for a little while to gab. He's dead now." The man was quiet in a pool of his own blood. "How do things look out there?" "A lot of racket in the direction of the lock area. Must be fighting going on down there. I didn't see anyone at all near this end." While he spoke, Terry bent over and moistened a strip of his clothing with one of the liquids. He held it to his nostrils for a moment and passed it to Underwood. Then he opened the return air vent and poured the contents of the other bottle into it. The highly volatile liquid quickly vaporized and passed to the fans of the central ventilating blowers, from which it passed into every chamber of the ship. Within ten minutes it had anesthetized every person aboard the ship except the two who had inhaled the antidote. While they waited, Underwood stared thoughtfully at the dead Rennies. "I wonder how Jandro kills," he said. "Can there be any defense against such silent power? Have you thought of what that implies with relation to Jandro's people and the society they live in?" Terry nodded. "I haven't thought much of anything else since I first saw him kill that guard in our stateroom. A civilization in which every member holds a silent, secret weapon over the head of his neighbor. It's incredible that it could exist." "But it _has_ existed and continues to exist, and I'll bet that Jandro is the first of his kind to use this power for generations."