spiral arm of the galaxy in which their planet was located, they had begun the Probe Teams to find some way of combating them, or of fleeing again.

But it seemed that the Probe Teams themselves might be betraying their existence to their enemies—

"Hatcher!"

The call was urgent; he hurried to see what it was about. It was his second in command, very excited. "What is it?" Hatcher demanded.

"Wait...."

Hatcher was patient; he knew his assistant well. Obviously something was about to happen. He took the moment to call his members back to him for feeding; they dodged back to their niches on his skin, fitted themselves into their vestigial slots, poured back their wastes into his own circulation and ingested what they needed from the meal he had just taken.... "Now!" cried the assistant. "Look!"

At what passed among Hatcher's people for a viewing console an image was forming. Actually it was the assistant himself who formed it, not a cathode trace or projected shadow; but it showed what it was meant to show.

Hatcher was startled. "Another one! And—is it a different species? Or merely a different sex?"

"Study the probe for yourself," the assistant invited.

Hatcher studied him frostily; his patience was not, after all, endless. "No matter," he said at last. "Bring the other one in."

And then, in a completely different mood, "We may need him badly. We may be in the process of killing our first one now."

"Killing him, Hatcher?"

Hatcher rose and shook himself, his mindless members floating away like puppies dislodged from suck. "Council's orders," he said. "We've got to go into Stage Two of the project at once."

III

Before Stage Two began, or before Herrell McCray realized it had begun, he had an inspiration.

The dark was absolute, but he remembered where the spacesuit had been and groped his way to it and, yes, it had what all spacesuits had to have. It had a light. He found the toggle that turned it on and pressed it.

Light. 

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