staring down at his strange, young-old face, and her eyes were bright with quiet wonder....

V

"What's this, what's this?" rasped Jerry's mind. "Where have I gotten to, now?"

"It's all right," said a soothing voice. "You're with me, now."

"Oh? Oh?" Jerry's mind said, snickering. "And who might you be?"

It was dark as he looked out through the alien eyes, but a quick patting of his paw across his face reassured him that his sharp white incisors, muzzle and stiff gray whiskers were intact and healthy.

"How can I be you?" asked Jerry. "If I'm a gray rat and you're a gray rat, what am I doing here?"

"You've come to spy on me, I know," said the soothing voice. "But see? You have nothing to fear, nothing at all. I'm not going to hurt you. You find no menace in me. Do you?"

"No. No menace. No danger. I'm safe, I'm secure, I'm warm and loved...."

"Relax," said the alien. "Relax, and let me have full control again. You can sleep if you do. You can rest. I'll take care of you, trust in that."

"Yes. Sleep. Rest. No more running, hiding, fearing...." said Jerry Norcriss, the gray rat-mind in the invisible body of another rat much like himself....

"Come on with that flashlight, damn it!" Bob raged, leading the other three crewmen through the woods. Two of them carried rifles, one had a flamethrower, and Bob himself carried one of the new bazookas with a potent short-range atomic warhead. Ollie, the man with the light, hurried up to him with a quick apology.

"Okay, okay," Bob said. "But I've got to see this dial—Ah, yes. This is the way, all right. Come on. Ollie, keep that beam so it spills on the tracking-cone dial as well as on the earth. We don't dare risk losing our way. There are only seven minutes left until Contact is broken."

"Yes, sir. I'll keep it right on there," Ollie said. "But about the lieutenant—are you sure he won't—"

"That's what the stopwatch is for. We must strike just as Contact is being broken. Any sooner, and we kill Lieutenant Norcriss with the alien. Any later, and 

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