you to ribbons!" Tiger protested.

Dal shook his head. "I don't think so," he said quietly. "I don't think
they'll touch me. They'll greet me with open arms when I go down there,
and they'll be eager to talk to me."

"Are you crazy?" Jack cried, leaping to his feet. "We can't let you go
out there."

"Don't worry," Dal said. "I know exactly what I'm doing. I'll be able to
handle the situation, believe me."

He hesitated a moment, and gave Fuzzy a last nervous pat, settling him
more firmly on his shoulder. Then he started down the corridor for the
entrance lock.

* * * * *

He had promised himself long before ... many years before ... that he
would never do what he planned to do now, but now he knew that there was
no alternative. The only other choice was to wait helplessly until the
power failed and the protective screen vanished and the creatures on the
ground outside tore the ship to pieces.

As he stood in the airlock waiting for the pressure to shift to outside
normal, he lifted Fuzzy down into the crook of his arm and rubbed the
little creature between the shoe-button eyes. "You've got to back me up
now," he whispered softly. "It's been a long time, I know that, but I
need help now. It's going to be up to you."

Dal knew the subtle strength of his people's peculiar talent. From the
moment he had stepped down to the ground the second time with Tiger and
Jack, even with Fuzzy waiting back on the ship, he had felt the powerful
wave of horror and fear and anger rising up from the Bruckians, and he
had glimpsed the awful idiot vacancy of the minds of the creatures in
the enclosure, in whom the intelligent virus was already dead. This had
required no effort; it just came naturally into his mind, and he had
known instantly that something terrible had gone wrong.

In the years on Hospital Earth, he had carefully forced himself never to
think in terms of his special talent. He had diligently screened off the
impressions and emotions that struck at him constantly from his
classmates and from others that he came in contact with. Above all, he
had fought down the temptation to turn his power the other way, to use
it to his own advantage.

But now, as the lock opened and he started down the ladder, he closed
his mind to everything else. Hugging Fuzzy close to his side, he turned
his mind into a single tight channel. He drove the thought out at the
Bruckians with all the power he could