Ten minutes of attack by a hundred Aabs would transform a man into a white, clean skeleton. About the bones, the Aabs would lie prostrate, too stuffed to move, their bodies swollen to thrice their normal size.
"Get out of here!" he screamed.
The Aab retreated a few inches, backing into the shadow of the Devil's Egg.
"Go on! And keep going!"
The Aab turned and began to creep away. It responded readily to Monk's commands.
For Aabs were gifted with a rudimentary, if unpredictable, type of telepathy. No interplanetary circus was complete without its complement of the deadly creatures controlled by an expert human telepath.
The Aab continued to needle a path through the sand. It passed through the shadow of the Devil's Egg. It was now some six feet from Monk, a tiny red ball half buried in the desert.
Suddenly a thought echoed in Monk's mind, ever so faintly, like the barely distinguishable sound of trickling water, far away:
I will come back. Many of us will come.
Monk paled. Damn. He'd forgotten. The Aabs, according to biological reports, sent out scouts in search of food. The Aab before him was a scout.