"Our detectors show that your location is in the largest body of water, near the eastern shore of the principal land mass of Planet 72-P-3. Is that correct?"
"Right. There is room to berth five like yours upon this uninhabited island. Here we will be safe from the Mad Ones."
Thig could almost see the Hordeman's smooth brow furrow with the unaccustomed task of thinking. The majority of the Horde's thinking was automatic, seldom did an alien thought intrude upon their formulized system of life. He smiled tautly—another gift from the dead man whose memories he had robbed was that of humor—as he listened for Urol's answer. There could be only one logical explanation for Thig's words. And Urol, like all the Hordemen, was a coldly logical being.
"There is madness on this world then?" Urol asked.
"That is right." Thig drew upon the story-telling genius of Terry as he related the carefully plotted story that would permit him entrance to the Orthan ship. They must believe him....
"There is madness on this world, indeed," he went on, after a moment, "but it did not originate here. Kam and Torp, when they returned from the watery planet, Planet 72-P-2, brought back the virus of madness with them. Both of them were infected, and their brief stay on this planet served to spread the disease here also.
"All over Earth, or as we call it, 72-P-3, the madness is spreading. Where there was peace and plenty there is now war and starvation. Most of this sub-human animal race will be wiped out before this madness has run its course."
"Yet you escaped its ravages," Urol said. "Have you discovered how to control this madness?"
"But I did not escape," Thig told him. "For many days after I returned to Earth I was insane. Torp and Kam had infected me as well. But I am strong, and I threw off the disease. At intervals it recurs but I strap myself down so I cannot harm myself before the madness passes."
"By the Law of the Horde," said Urol slowly, "you should be destroyed if the disease is incurable."