Shoot me you fool, the Captain's brain screamed. Beneath its hood the thing quivered violently, but it held the Captain's body under perfect control.

Hogan jammed his rifle muzzle against the Captain's head. "Speak, damn you, speak. What's on your back? You see Temp, he's so crazy he can't even speee—"

Violently the Captain's body grappled for possession of the rifle. With a blinding flash it went off between them. Over and over in the dust they rolled, while Templar danced about and did nothing. As the Captain's hands clamped on Hogan's windpipe he saw Templar had finally picked up the rifle. Surely he must see the thing on his back. Shoot me, you fool.

Gasping, Hogan tore loose and swung his fist against the Captain's teeth. Lunging, he drove his knee into the Captain's stomach.

In that moment Templar made his decision. He slammed down the rifle barrel on Hogan's skull.

Gently, the Captain's hands took the rifle away from Templar. They pointed the muzzle at his belly and signalled for him to lie down. When Templar stared uncomprehending, they fired a blast near his cheek. By the time the Captain's hands had finished trussing Templar with his own trousers and belt, the blue-eyed young man had noticed the thing on his Captain's neck—and quietly gone mad.

After binding Hogan's unconscious bulk, it dragged both of them into the spheroid. There it frantically opened drawers, thumbed through illustrations in books and manuals, pulled levers and pressed buttons indiscriminately, as though it was looking for a clue to guide its further actions. It had dropped its net by the control dome. Now it seemed to be searching for some more effective means of taking men alive. The auto-electric gun manual held its attention, especially the circuit diagrams that showed how the deadly stream of electrons might be widened into a stunning spray. Unfortunately there was even a line drawing of a man stunning and tying a venupod. It stared for a long time at the accompanying frequency tables. The setting-numbers on the receiver of the gun, the corresponding numbers on the table, the logic of mathematics made the thing's inability to read words quite immaterial.

When Spencer clambered through the hatch, the diffusion ray stunned him in his tracks. Quickly it leaped out and stunned Ives and Kwatahiri. After the Captain's hands had bound them with climbing ropes, they lay on the floor of the spheroid, their limp bodies gradually stiffening 

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