"Back up, Sammy," Knight said softly. "What's this about battling over your body?" "Nothing too dramatic, really. They just seemed reluctant to let you go home, too. Seems as if you tried to skewer Mallory. You even beat up a couple of guards with atomic pistols. You went raving and screaming through the _Star Climber_ trying to rip instruments out of the ship. "In short, you went space crazy, Kent. You raved and babbled about some awful Thing that was running around in your mind." "Yes?" Knight questioned quietly. "And Mallory decided that you were better off in the _Star Climber_. He thinks you've picked up some terrible disease." Sammy looked at Knight suddenly, searchingly. "You're all right now, aren't you?" he asked. It was quite a while before Knight answered. He was going over his mind with a mental fine-toothed comb. _Is_ It _in me? I can't tell for sure. Once before I was sure_ It _was gone, and_ It _was here. Is_ It _gone now?_ "Yes, Sammy," he answered finally. "I think I'm all right now. Why?" "Well," said Sammy, taking another quick gulp out of the bottle, "You don't look all right." His mind, which had been seeking out the Thing in Kent Knight's being, relaxed from its search and thought of other items. "Sammy," Knight asked suddenly. "Do _you_ feel queer?" Sammy looked at Knight, his eyes suddenly harried. "Honest-to-gosh, Kent, I wouldn't admit this to anybody else. But I wonder sometimes if _I_ am all right. Everybody else seems just a little odd to me. I don't know what it is, I just feel it. But, then, maybe it's me. I'm scared all the time, Kent, and I don't know why. Sometimes, I believe something's trying to steal _me_." He looked up, waiting for Knight to laugh. But Kent Knight's hazel eyes were very serious and very searching. "Not the physical me," Sammy amended. "But the real me, the essence of me. So I try to drown that fear in my bottles. I never had that feeling until we landed on that asteroid. And now it won't go away." _You were supposed to have the answer, Sammy_, Knight thought despairingly. _But I guess you haven't. The Thought Conquerors have got to you, too. Because we are complex in our mental makeup, the reaction is different. You only feel there's something wrong with_ It _in you; It didn't seem to affect Mallory much;_ It _made Captain Hansen believe he's young;_ It _made itself known to me and I wanted to fight_ It. _But how can you fight_ It _when you have no measure of your opponent--when_ Its _attack is so varied--when_ It _comes and goes as_ It _wills?_ He shrugged in answer. To Sammy, he put the question, "So we're going home?" "It won't be much longer now," Sammy said. "The make ready signal buzzed just before you woke up." The urgency struck at Knight. Only a hundred thousand miles from Earth! Rather, Earth was only a hundred thousand miles from slavery--abject submission to these Thought Conquerors, first seen by Earthmen as furry little butterballs.