were a blur. Then she stopped, staring down at what she held. "There--a cavity in the head, filled with nerve fibers. There must be three pounds there alone. What freak of evolution would put them all together in such a vulnerable spot? And yet, there's a certain efficiency about it. It isn't logical--and yet it is."

Abruptly, the evidence was gone. "Come on," she ordered.

Arnek sighed, and his stomach rumbled a protest. But he ignored it. "What good is it? We surely can't make a silth out of a tiny thing like that?"

"Why not?" Contempt for male thought was mixed with smug satisfaction for her own. "We don't use the other cells anyhow. Oh, there will be difficulties. They may be short-lived. But with such high grade fiber, we can risk infiltrating a new one as often as we need. There should be enough of them. They probably have half a dozen to a litter twice a year, like most small forms. Possibly billions of them can live on a single planet. And since they're colonizing other worlds like this one...."

Even Arnek could see the logic behind Ptarra's assumption in that. Colonizing would explain the sending out of a male and female in each ship, with ships spread out days apart. It wasn't the most efficient method, but it usually insured against any major accident. His people had used the same method at times.

It all seemed quite logical, but Arnek felt a tension of intuition along his entire nerve network. No anna had ever used a silth capable of independent intelligence. There must be something wrong with it. Once they infiltrated the new silth, of course, they could soon convert enough nerves to blank out all control from their carriers. But....

"Their weapons," he cried. "Ptarra, in those bodies, we'd be vulnerable to their weapons. And during the ten days we have to hibernate to grow into their nerves, they'd kill us."

Ptarra grunted. "Sometimes," she admitted, "you almost think like a female. They would kill us, of course, if we stupidly stayed where later arrivals could find us. Now come on. We've got to chase the creatures around today until they're tired enough to sleep soundly. And don't let them get near that ship, either!"

It was a bitter day for Arnek. His stomach protested, and by the end of the chase, his legs were beginning to weaken. But ahead of them, the two humans were staggering in the light of the setting sun. The smaller was leaning on the larger as 

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