“I told you not to kill, Farris! I told you!”
“Slay them!” pulsed the alien thought.
Berreau spoke, his eyes not leaving Farris. “Run, Lys. Leave the forest. This — murderer must die.”
He lunged as he spoke, and there was death in his white face and clutching hands.
Farris Was knocked back, against one of the giant banyan trunks. They rolled, grappling. And already the vines were sliding around them — looping and enmeshing them, tightening upon them!
It was then that the forest shrieked.
A cry telepathic and auditory at the same time — and dreadful. An utterance of alien agony beyond anything human.
Berreau’s hands fell away from Farris. The Frenchman, enmeshed with him by the coiling vines, looked up in horror.
Then Farris saw what had happened. The little vial, the vial of the blight, had smashed against the banyan trunk as Berreau charged.
And that little splash of gray-green mould was rushing through the forest faster than flame! The blight, the gray-green killer from far away, propagating itself with appalling rapidity! “Dieu!” screamed Berreau. “Non — non —”