"You never did and never will need me. I don't need you. But I hurt you, you hurt me, too, because I've loved you ever since you and dad first started your force field experiments." "I still love you, you sweet fool!" Then she was gone. Wing's cry, "Pat!" struck the closed door. Wing hurled himself toward the door. Then stopped short as a sleepy "Whassa matter, Curt?" growled out of the corner where Dead-Eye had been napping. "Nothing," Wing said abruptly. Then: "I thought you went home hours ago." Rubbing bleary eyes and pulling on his beard, Dead-Eye, grinning through the black mass, said, "I pretended to, but I thought you might need me and Elizabeth for sumpin." Wing glanced at the metal desk, heaped with the paper covered with a thousand figures he had set down as he tried again and again to find where in the long ago he had made his mistake in creating his field. If Prof. Packer were still alive, he could find that error. If I can only solve that maybe I can build up a neutralizing field. "Come on, Dead-Eye, my brain's dulled with too much paper work. Let's go take a first hand look at that damn blue flower." The blue flower was pulsing faster now, Wing decided, as he and Dead Eye approached a police captain who was directing people with clothing and valuables, toward the line of rocket buses. Wing looked into the hazy depths of the force field. Were those figures moving about in there? Or was his tired brain playing tricks on him? "Gee, Cap," Dead-Eye exclaimed. "There's somebody inside!" The police captain moved up to them. "We've reported what you see, Commander," he said. "They only became noticeable a half hour ago. But it didn't seem possible there _could_ be any life in there." "Life within that death?" Wing repeated. His blood-shot eyes peered at the police captain. "I don't see why not. Whoever created it must be able to handle it. They must have some protection, some armor against it. If we could capture one." "That's it," the captain said. "They're inside and they won't come out. Before, those shadows looked like some sort of beings. They're dimmer now. They walk upright in a sort of shuffle, but they won't come out of the flower." "If we could entice one of them out somehow," Wing said softly. "If we knew what they were, it might help us find a way of throttling that flower before it destroyed anything else." * * * * * The captain grinned ruefully. "We've tried everything to dent that field, and it didn't even change color. I guess maybe we'll just have to wait until they decide to come out, huh, Commander?" Wing grinned back at the captain. "Maybe we ought to let sleeping dogs lie, Captain? Maybe you're right, but if one of them even looks like he intends to come out, buzz me on the visaplate at once."