He cursed me. You could smell the fear rising hot from us all. I heard feet running behind me, and then more, going away. Quern said, "All right, you crazy fool. Raise me up. Hold your hands flat." I made a platform out of my palms. And the _cansins_ started our way. Gow whispered, "Don't shoot. Don't anybody shoot." I don't think he knew then, that there wasn't anybody left to shoot but himself and Jarin. The _cansins_ were huge and solid, behemoths carved from the night. They towered over us, and the green light pulsed. My jaw hung open and I couldn't breathe, and I'd have run only my joints were all water. Quern went into his act. He began to show color. Out of nothing his body started to glow, from inside. You could see the round blurred shape of him, and the phosphorescence of his guts, showing through. First red, savage as a punch in the face, and then all the rest of the spectrum, sometimes one color, sometimes a swirl of them. His body changed shape. I could feel the queer rubbery movement of it on my hands. I remembered the rubes I'd seen standing around Quern's platform, their eyes drawn half out of their heads by the shifting lines and colors. It worked with them. But not here. The _cansins_ came on. The green light flared a little brighter, and that was all. Habit and control were so strong that not even the females paid much attention to Quern. I could see the rain smoking off their huge black shoulders. They were right on top of us. Quern gasped, "I can't do it!" His glow deadened. I shook him. I yelled, "I knew you were a phony! You two-bit yentzer! Jarin, slow 'em down, can't you?" Quern began to shimmer again. Jarin faded in, hardly visible in the darkness. I heard his tentacles whiplashing across hard flesh. One of the _cansins_ screamed. The green light did a sharp dip and swirl. And I yelled, "Gow! Speak to Gertrude!" The terrifying forward march slowed a little. Quern was churning colors out of his guts as though his life depended on it--which it did. Gow stepped forward a little. "Gertrude," he said. "Gertrude, you ugly, slab-sided, left-handed--" He cursed her, affectionately. I never heard anything like his voice. I wanted to cry. In Quern's faint hypnotic glow I saw the green eyes of the nearest female watching, looking wide and queer. The male was angry, now. Angry and scared. You could tell by the vicious brightness of him. We decided afterward that his light was the same kind a glow-worm carries around, only stronger. He was fighting. Fighting to hold those four minds against the attraction of Quern's shifting glow. He'd have done it, too, if it hadn't been for Gow. Gow, standing in the hot rain and cursing Gertrude with tears in his voice. Gertrude screamed. Suddenly, for no reason, a strange uncertain cry. She moved. A sort of shudder ran through the other three. It was a little like a wall cracking. The male burned savagely.