"And then what?" asked Grace. "What happens to us once you've picked our brains of knowledge? If it's death--" "Grace--" Lloyd said warningly, taking her arm. She turned on him. "Darling, if we're to die in _any_ event, let's die now! At least we'll have the satisfaction that a hundred other people aren't dying afterward, because of us!" "She's right, Fred," Bodger said, smiling for the first time since his arrival at Grace's Unit. "If you kill us now, you'll never find anything out. At least our lives will have accomplished something, if only continued secrecy about the movement." "A Snapper Beam needn't kill, if used briefly enough," Stanton said mildly. "If you four prefer dancing an agonized quadrille until the arrival of the squad, you have only to come an inch closer. In fact, unless you return to your chairs at once, I may just do it anyhow, for my own diversion." "A Snapper Beam," said Bodger, "is effective only so long as it's held upon its victim. Can you play yours four ways at once, Fred? Because, while you're gunning any one of us down, three will be diving for your throat!" * * * * * Stanton, before Bodger's statement could bring the others in a unified wave against him, pointed the muzzle of the Snapper directly at the man's chest and pressed the firing stud. A whine of power came from the weapon as the invisible forces lashed out. And Bodger took two strides forward and smashed his fist into Stanton's face. The President's head snapped back with the unexpected blow, and cracked sharply against the wall. Then, the weapon falling from his limp fingers, he slid to the floor and collapsed in an untidy heap. Bodger, stumbling back from the fallen body, sagged into a chair, gasping. Lloyd sprang to his side, dropped to one knee beside the chair, staring in unbelief at the shaken man. "Dad!" he blurted, in dazed joy. "You're alive! You're all right!" "No ..." Bodger said, his eyes bulging as he shook his head, his lips thickening over words that were becoming difficult to formulate. "No, Lloyd. I'm--sicker than I thought." "What are you talking about, Dad! You just took a dose of power that would've destroyed a healthy human nervous system, and came _through_ it! How can you say--" "Lloyd!" Bodger rasped, clutching his son's arm. "Don't you see? I don't--don't _have_ a human nervous system, anymore. The thing I've always feared has happened. I--" He coughed, and his skin took on a sickly bluish tinge for a moment, then flushed into a ruddier tone as he took a breath and held himself in rigid control. "The--The Brain. You ... must go to the Brain, Lloyd. I--Can't talk more ... ask it ... why is the Hive...." His voice trailed off, and his eyes closed. "Dad," Lloyd said, shaking his father by the shoulders. "Why is the Hive _what_?! Tell me!"