They had apparently seen us through the walls of the ship, and their egg-laying instincts had gone awry. They had plunged ovipositors into our flesh, spun webs about us and hung us up to dry out while their loathsome progeny feasted on our flesh. The whitish substance exuding from the mouth-parts of one of the photographed wasps had evidently been mucilaginous web material. There was no other possible explanation. And suddenly as I lay there with thudding temples something occurred which increased my horror ten-fold. Zigzagging, luminous lines appeared on the ribbed metal wall opposite the quartz port and a wasp materialized amidst spectral bands of radiance which wavered and shimmered like heat waves in bright sunlight. A coldness itched across my scalp. Dangling from the wasp's right fore-leg was the web-enmeshed form of the fuel unit control pilot. Young Darnel's hair was tousled, and his metacloth pilot tunic had been partly torn away, leaving his ribs exposed. I had never seen anything quite so horrible. Embedded in Darnel's flesh was a huge, faintly luminous grub, its rudimentary mouth-parts obscurely visible beneath the drum-tight skin over his breastbone. His hands closed and unclosed as I stared down at him. His forehead was drenched with sweat and he writhed as though in unbearable anguish, a hectic flush suffusing his cheeks. My throat felt hot and swollen but I managed to whisper: "Darnel. Darnel, my lad." Slowly his eyelids flickered open and he stared up at me, a grimace of agony convulsing his haggard features. "Nothing seems quite real, sir," he groaned. "Except--the pain." "Is it very bad?" "I'm in agony, sir. I can't stand it much longer. It's as though a heated iron were resting on my chest." "Where did that wasp take you?" "Into the chart room, sir. When I struggled in the web it carried me into the chart room and stung me again." I swallowed hard. "Did you experience any pain before that, lad?" "I felt a stab the first time it plunged its stinger into me, but when I came to in the web there was no pain. The pain started in the chart room." I was thinking furiously. Stinger--ovipositor. A few species of stinging terrestrial insects possessed organs which combined the functions of both. Evidently the wasps had simply stung us at first--to paralyze us. Now they were completing the gruesome process of providing a feast for their avaricious progeny. One of the wasps had taken Darnel from the web, and deposited a fertile, luminous egg in his flesh. It was becoming hideously clear now. The wasp's retreat into the chart room had been motivated by a desire to complete its loathsome task in grim seclusion. It had withdrawn a short distance for the sake of privacy, passing completely through the wall out of sight.