ped than
starfish. Starfish can do the same thing, you know.

I read on. And came to this incredible revelation, tossed off coolly
by the author without the faintest tremor:

_... outside the movie theater we split up. Part of us went
inside, part over to the cafe for dinner._

Binary fission, obviously. Splitting in half and forming two entities.
Probably each lower half went to the cafe, it being farther, and the
upper halves to the movies. I read on, hands shaking. I had really
stumbled onto something here. My mind reeled as I made out this
passage:

_... I'm afraid there's no doubt about it. Poor Bibney has
lost his head again._

Which was followed by:

_... and Bob says he has utterly no guts._

Yet Bibney got around as well as the next person. The next person,
however, was just as strange. He was soon described as:

_... totally lacking in brains._

* * * * *

There was no doubt of the thing in the next passage. Julia, whom I had
thought to be the one normal person, reveals herself as also being an
alien life form, similar to the rest:

_... quite deliberately, Julia had given her heart to the
young man._

It didn't relate what the final disposition of the organ was, but I
didn't really care. It was evident Julia had gone right on living in
her usual manner, like all the others in the book. Without heart,
arms, eyes, brains, viscera, dividing up in two when the occasion
demanded. Without a qualm.

_... thereupon she gave him her hand._

I sickened. The rascal now had her hand, as well as her heart. I
shudder to think what he's done with them, by this time.

_... he took her arm._

Not content to wait, he had to start dismantling her on his own.
Flushing crimson, I slammed the book shut and leaped to my feet. But
not in time to escape one last reference to those carefree bits of
anatomy whose travels had originally thrown me on the track:

_... her eyes followed him all the way down the road and
across the meadow._

I rushed from the garage and back inside the warm house, as if the
accursed things were following me. My wife and children were playing
Monopoly in the kitchen. I joined them and played with frantic fervor,
brow feverish, teeth chattering.

I had had enough of the thing. I want to hear no more about it. Let
them come on. Let them invade Earth. I don't want to get mixed up in
it.

I have absolutely