others—"

He saw the others then. Maybe he hadn't noticed before, because his mind didn't want him to see.

Husks. Pallid wrinkled husks, sucked dry and shriveled. Several figures not recognizable anymore, hardly recognizable as human. Just vaguely human, broken, sucked dry.

His mind seemed covered by a grotesque shadow. His flesh crawled and his throat turned dry, and perspiration made a stream down his throat. He felt his eyes looking down at his right hand.

It held the heat-blaster. The skin felt tight as though it would split as he gripped the heavy butt of the coiled weapon.

He concentrated on the finger that was frozen on the firing stud. If he could destroy, then he was insane. His experience with Drakeson, that had been no test at all compared with this. This was Pat. Pat, and she was dying—dying unspeakably.

This was the great test of his sanity. He concentrated on the finger. He must keep it frozen. He must back out of here. Get away, get back to the Cowl, back to anesthesia and sleep.

The finger raised slowly from the stud. His feet lifted as his body moved fitfully back, back, back—

"Greg—help me, Greg—"

Her eyes stopped him. They tumbled into terrible clarity. She whispered starkly.

"Greg—help me—kill it, Greg. For me—Kill it."

He felt his lips part in a great and terrible cry of torture. His shoulders began to twitch slightly. His arms and fingers took up the jerky rhythm. Horror and a violent crimson flood of unfamiliar emotions mushroomed like a volcano of madness. Something began crumbling away.

He lurched forward. He felt the heat-blaster heaving, throwing out its deadly load. The gun had weight and power in his hand as he crouched lower and moved in.

The power load swathed in long slicing arcs. Steam and sickening stench fell around him. He moved in. He stumbled forward kicking out to right and left at the quivering slices of stuff that were falling around him.

Destruction. Kill. Death. This was all three, and in a giant, almost inconceivable quantity.

Her face through the steaming cloud. Her throat moving as she swallowed. Brightness, the 

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