ess. There
isn't a man--or an animal--on Earth that will destroy this thing. Wait
a minute--does it sleep, Mr. Whitney?"

"I don't think so. At least, I never saw it sleep. And your team of
scientists, did they report anything?"

"No. As far as they could see, the creature never slept. We can't catch
it unawares."

"Could you anesthetize it?"

"How? It can sense danger, and long before you could do that, it would
stop you. It's only made one mistake, Mr. Whitney: it believes the
noises of the city represent a danger. And that's only a negative
mistake. Noise won't hurt Black Eyes, of course. It simply makes the
animal unnecessarily cautious. But we cannot anesthetize it any more
than we can kill it."

"I could take it back to Venus."

"Could you? Could you? I hadn't thought of that."

Judd shook his head. "I can't."

"What do you mean you can't?"

"It won't let me. Somehow it can sense our thoughts when we think
something it doesn't want. I can't take it to Venus! No man could,
because it doesn't want to go."

"My dear Mr. Whitney--do you mean to say you believe it can _think_?"

"Uh-uh. Didn't say that. It can sense our thoughts, and that's something
else again."

Dr. Jamison threw his hands up over his head in a dramatic gesture.
"It's hopeless," he said.

* * * * *

Things grew worse. New York crawled along to a standstill. People began
to move from the city. In trickles, at first, but the trickles became
torrents, as New York's ten million people began to depart for saner
places. It might take months--it might even take years, but the exodus
had begun. Nothing could stop it. Because of a harmless little beast
with the eyes of a tarsier, the life of a great city was coming to an
end.

Word spread. Scientists all over the world studied reports on Black
Eyes. No one had any ideas. Everyone was stumped. Black Eyes had no
particular desire to go outside. Black Eyes merely remained in the
Whitney house, contemplating nothing in particular, and stopping
everything.

Dr. Jamison, however, was a persistent man. Judd got a letter from him
one day, and the following afternoon he kept his appointment with the
scientist.

"It's good to get out," Judd said, after a three hour walk to the
Department of Science Building. "I can go crazy just staring at that
thing."

"I have it, Whitney."

"You have what? Not the way to destroy Black Eyes? I don't believe it!"

"It's true.