Then I saw a hand move at the table of the last booth near the rear of the restaurant. A man's hand stirring coffee absently. He sat with his back toward me, concealed behind the high back of the booth. His was the older, heavier mental voice.

"He must be found," the man's thought came.

"Could it be—a foreign intruder? Perhaps even one of us who—"

"No. Soon we will be many—when I come back. But now we are the only ones. He must be human."

"But he speaks with the mind."

"That is not so strange. It is only strange that many do not do so, as we do."

Listening, I felt a creeping contraction of horror as if I had touched something cold and alien. My God, what did they mean? They believed that I must be—human. And what were they?

"I would like to return with you—to assist in your expedition." The bright young mind spoke.

"Your task is to find the human who speaks with his thoughts and destroy him. If he is able to hear us he is dangerous. Once we are here in force it will not matter. But now——"

The horror expanded in my mind, a revulsion exaggerated now by a consciousness of danger, of menace that was suddenly close and real. While they were hunting me, the listener, I had stumbled right into their midst. Who they were or what I did not know, but they held power in their minds beyond the scope of my imagination. And if they learned that I was—

"When do you go?" the youthful one asked.

"Soon now. The launching will be in the final week of this month, depending on suitable conditions."

"You will be able to effect the transfer?"

"There will be no difficulty in the actual change. I have already picked out the human in the space colony. He is young and strong but mentally very susceptible. Already he is under my control. I have only to find the right moment alone with him. However, since this body I now inhabit must be presumed dead when I leave it, and there will be no visible remains, it will be necessary for me to devise an accident in which the body would naturally be consumed or lost. Drowning may prove most suitable."

Drowning! My recurrent nightmare came back to me in a rush. I felt the blood drain from my face. My head felt light and faintly dizzy.

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