For Aabs were gifted with a rudimentary, if unpredictable, type of telepathy. No interplanetary circus was complete without its complement of the deadly creatures controlled by an expert human telepath.

The Aab continued to needle a path through the sand. It passed through the shadow of the Devil's Egg. It was now some six feet from Monk, a tiny red ball half buried in the desert.

Suddenly a thought echoed in Monk's mind, ever so faintly, like the barely distinguishable sound of trickling water, far away:

I will come back. Many of us will come.

Monk paled. Damn. He'd forgotten. The Aabs, according to biological reports, sent out scouts in search of food. The Aab before him was a scout.

The fear welled up within him, stronger than ever. His body was held motionless in his tight prison, yet inside him he was trembling.

"No! Don't go! Come back!"

He repeated the words over and over in his mind, knowing that the Aab would respond only to the mental impulse, not to the sound of words. Aabs were deaf to the human voice.

The Aab paused.

"Don't go! Don't! Don't!"

Slowly, like a revolving wheel, the Aab turned. Its black, pin-head eyes seemed to bore into Monk's.

I'm going. You cannot stop me. The thoughts, not words, filtered into Monk's consciousness.

"You are not going," Monk telepathed. He gritted his teeth, funneling all his strength into the mental command.

The Aab was struggling to break away from the hypnotic chain. Its body was grotesquely twisted, its claws digging into the sand, its head bobbing absurdly.

Let me go. Let me go.

"You can't go. I've got you."

LET ME GO. LET ME GO.

The Aab struggled furiously.

"Damn you, I won't let you go." Monk hurled the thought at the creature in a fire of desperate fury.

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