Part 3

"Oh, my God!" Jim Palmer said stupidly, stared at the strap he still held in his heavy hand.

Don Denton rolled from beneath the gravity-rotor, came to his feet, dodged around the dazed man, tugged open the nearest panel in the wall. He took two small, belt gravity-rotors from a shelf, handed one to Palmer, buckled the other about his head.

"Put that rotor about your head, Palmer," he ordered. "We've got some work to do."

He switched on his own rotor, felt nausea cramp at his stomach when the gravity field pulled at his neck muscles. Hooking his foot beneath the ship's rotor, he helped Palmer fasten the rotor over his greyed hair, then handed the older man one of the ati-guns.

"Come on," he said. "We've got some hunting to do."

He led the way, jumping from the port-door, the gun blasting in his hand, conscious of the _Lanka_ manager's bulky body at his side.

They went side by side down the field, the wailing roar of their guns screaming in the air, the slugs dying hideously, one by one.

And then Jean was in Don Denton's arms, her slender shoulders shaking in a torrent of sobs, and he was soothing her with a clumsy gentleness that felt strange and good to him.

* * * * *

They sat in the control room of the great freighter, _Moonstone_, their faces were turned to where Don Denton stood at the control panel. The trouble shooter grinned at the fifteen people that made up his audience, and he summed up all of his thoughts and theories.

"Those slugs," he explained, "were little more than animated brains. They lived somewhere in the oceans, and probably discovered the _Lanka_ camps by accident. They had no ways of subduing you men by physical means, because of their grub-like bodies, so they took control of your minds. Unluckily, they failed to gain control of one of you men and of both of the freighter pilots; and the three men tried to escape in a small rocket. The rocket crashed, killing all three of the men."

Jim Palmer nodded. "That's what I've got figured out," he said, "But I've just got a hazy memory of the past three months."

"Well," Don Denton continued, "these slugs must have got the idea of going to Earth and the other inhabited planets, and taking control of them. But they needed your help and a space pilot to transport you and them. They put all of you in a cataleptic state, while waiting for some space pilot to appear. They left a guard, the slug I shot down the moment I begin searching the camp. But before he died, he sent out a call that brought a single slug into camp."

Jean Palmer shivered, held tightly to the trouble shooter's hand. "I know," she said, "I took off my helmet to adjust the oxygen valve, and I looked up to see that whitish thing at the corner of the hut. Before I could call out, something seemed to grab my mind--and then I was running toward the jungle. I tried to scream to you, when you found me gone, but I couldn't move."

Don Denton smiled, tightened his strong fingers over the girl's. "It's fairly easy to reconstruct from there on," he said carefully. "The slugs tried to get control of my mind. But because thought is of an electrical nature, absolute control wouldn't pass through the copper of my oxy-helmet. They set a scene to make me think I was crazy, and sent Palmer to take off my helmet."

"I remember that," Jim Palmer said thoughtfully.

Don Denton nodded. "Well," he went on, "their mental control was enough that it played tricks with my mind. They blanked out my vision when I looked at them, and later, they blacked out the sight of the freighters, trying to make me think that I was so crazy I should take off my helmet for an examination."

"I escaped from Palmer, went back to the _Comet_, then raced out of the ship to save Jean from a beating." He shook his head slightly when he saw the pain on Palmer's face. "Of course it was just a trick to get me outside without my helmet. Well, I fell for it; and the slugs took control, making me believe that Jim Palmer was the master mind engineering everything. But on entering the _Comet_, I slipped and fell beneath the ship's gravity-rotor. The field of gravity-energy neutralized the electricity of the thought waves--just as it blanks out the power of a flashlight--and I was able to think again. I blasted the slugs, got two portable rotors and fastened them to Palmer and myself, and the two of us cleaned out the slugs."

Don Denton flicked his gaze about the room. "Now, if you men intend to stay, you've got to wear tiny gravity-rotors on your heads. It apparently isn't the quantity of power put out that blankets the thought waves, it's possible to use a very weak power. I don't think the slugs will try anything again, but if they do, you shouldn't have any trouble getting rid of them."

"We're staying on," Jim Palmer said grimly, nodded approvingly at the confident glances given him by his men. "And I hope those damned things show up again. I'd like nothing better than to take an ati-blaster to a bunch of those uncanny devils."

He grinned suddenly, looked squarely into Don Denton's eyes.

"How about staying on for awhile?" he asked, "There might be a little excitement on this planet that you could dig up?"

Don Denton shook his head. "Sorry," he said, "but I've got a date with some friends of mine on Mars; we're going to explore some of the new tombs they discovered two months ago. I guess I'll be getting along."

He felt the insistent tugging of Jean's slender fingers on his. A smile lifted the corners of his lips, and he bent over, kissed her with a quick possessiveness.

"My mistake," he said warmly, "_we'll_ be getting along!"

He and Jean were smiling into each other's eyes then, reading there a future that held many promises of adventure and love and--and things that would be utterly nothing to others than themselves.