He found the switch that opened the door, pulled it down, and peered out into the hall. Three figures lay outside, unconscious. A fourth was running toward them from the far end of the long hall, shouting, "What happened? What's going on?" Harris stared at him. The Medlin ran into the forty-foot zone and recoiled visibly; he staggered forward a few steps and fell, joining his comrades on the thick velvet carpet. Ten of them, Harris thought. He drew the disruptor. It lay in his palm, small, deadly. The trigger was a thin strand of metal; he needed only to flip off the guard, press the trigger back, and watch the Medlins die. But his hand was shaking. He did not fire. A silent voice said, _You could not be trusted after all. You were a traitor. But_ we _had to let the test go at least this far, for the sake of_ our _consciences_. "Who said that?" _I did._ "Where are you? I don't see you." _In this room_, came the reply. _Put down the gun, Harris-Khiilom. No, don't try to signal your friends. Just let the gun fall._ As if it had been wrenched from his hand, the gun dropped from his fingers, bounced a few inches, and lay still. _Shut off the subsonic_, came the quiet command. _I find it unpleasant._ Obediently Harris deactivated the instrument. His mind was held in some strange stasis; he had no private volitional control. "Who are you?" _A member of that super-race whose existence you refused to accept._ Harris looked at Wrynn and his wife. Both were unconscious. "Wrynn?" he said. "How can your mind function if you're unconscious?" CHAPTER VI Gently Harris felt himself falling toward the floor. It was as if an intangible hand had yanked his legs out from under him and eased him down. He lay quiescent, eyes open, neither moving nor wanting to move. The victims of the subsonic slowly returned to consciousness as the minutes passed. Beth woke first. She stared at the unconscious form of Wrynn's wife and said, "You went to quite an extent to prove a point!" _You were in no danger_, came the answer. The others were awakening now, sitting up, rubbing their foreheads. Harris watched them. His head throbbed too, as if he had been stunned by the subsonic device himself. "Suppose you had been knocked out by the subsonic too?" Beth said to the life within the giant woman. "He would have killed us." _The subsonic could not affect me._ Harris said, "That--embryo can think and act?" His voice was a harsh whisper. Beth nodded. "The next generation. It reaches sentience while still in the womb. By the time it's born it's fully aware." "And I thought it was a hoax," Harris said dizzily. He felt dazed. The values of his life had been shattered in a moment, and it would not be easy to repair them with similar speed.