"Why?"

"I think it can see something—"

Gorman fired, so swiftly that he felt the heat of the beam even though he had been expecting it. He shot for the heart and Gorman collapsed before he could fire again. He lay still on the ground, the eyes that stared up into the sky no deader than when he had been alive.

The dog was lunging against her leash, trying to get to him. Thane stepped closer and watched the grass beside Gorman's head. A patch of it the size of his hand suddenly bent down, as from an unseen weight, and then something struck his knee.

He slapped at it as it darted up his leg and knocked it off; something that felt like a mass of cold, rubbery tentacles. He knew, then.

He stepped back, his blaster swinging aimlessly. The thing would leap again, to reach his head as it had done with Gorman, and it was invisible. There was nothing but the moonlit grass to be seen. Perhaps it was behind him, already preparing to spring....

The dog's snarling was a frenzied scream as she fought against her leash. He swung his blaster and its blue beam cut the leash in two.

She flashed toward him, then up, her ears laid back, her eyes blazing slits and her teeth slashing at his throat. His blaster was in line with her chest and for a brief instant he had only to press the firing stud.

He did something he had not done for thirty years; he trusted his life to another being and did not fire.

Cold tentacles whipped against his face and her teeth closed together beside his cheek with a vicious snap and gust of hot breath. She rebounded and held the thing on the ground between her paws as she tore at it; gagging a little, whining and snarling in fury and triumph.

He squatted beside her and laid his hand on her, speaking to her soothingly. She calmed a little, though her chest still pounded with the beating of her heart, and he saw the thing she had killed.

It was dead and slowly becoming visible as it changed to a color like pale milk. It resembled a huge, hairless spider.

It was a parasite; a highly intelligent parasite that could take over the mind of its host as well as the body. The parasites had had only the forest monsters as hosts, before, but with the coming of the humans they had the opportunity for hosts of a far higher order. They possessed a 

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