Harker stopped. "This is it. Listen, Rory. I want you to go off up there, out of the danger area...." "Matt, I...." "Shut up. One of us has got to be alive to take word back to the ships as soon as he can get through the valley. There's no great rush and you'll be able to travel in three-four days. You...." "But why me? You're a better mountain man...." "You're married," said Harker curtly. "It'll only take one of us to shove a couple of those big slabs down. They're practically ready to fall of their own weight. Maybe nothing will happen. Maybe I'll get out all right. But it's a little silly if both of us take the risk, isn't it?" "Yeah. But Matt...." "Listen, kid." Harker's voice was oddly gentle. "I know what I'm doing. Give my regards to Viki and the...." He broke off with a sharp cry of pain. Looking down incredulously, he saw his body covered with little tentative flames, feeble, flickering, gone, but leaving their red footprints behind them. McLaren had the same thing. They stared at each other. A helpless terror took Harker by the throat. Telekinesis again. The flower people turning his own weapon against them. They had seen fire, and what it did, and they were copying the process in their own minds, concentrating, all of them together, the whole mental force of the colony centered on the two men. He could even understand why they focused on the skin. They had taken the sunburn-thought and applied it literally. Fire. Spontaneous combustion. A simple, easy reaction, if you knew the trick. There was something about a burning bush.... The attack came again, stronger this time. The flower people were getting the feel of it now. It hurt. Oh God, it hurt. McLaren screamed. His loincloth and bandages began to smoulder. _What to do, thought Harker, quick, tell me what to do...._ The flower people focus on us through our minds, our conscious minds. Maybe they can't get the subconscious so easily, because the thoughts are not directed, they're images, symbols, vague things. Maybe if Rory couldn't think consciously they couldn't find him.... Another flare of burning, agonizing pain. In a minute they'll have the feel of it. They can keep it going.... Without warning, Harker slugged McLaren heavily on the jaw and dragged him away to where the rock was firm. He did it all with astonishing strength and quickness. There was no need to save himself. He wasn't going to need himself much longer. He went away a hundred feet or so, watching McLaren. A third attack struck him, sickened and dazed him so that he nearly fell. Rory McLaren was not touched.