"Suppose you hadn't?"
"How much more of that scuttle-and-slither treatment do you think he could have taken?"
Anderson looked at the unconscious communications man. "Surely more than that." He looked up suddenly. "Where the hell did that vermin come from?"
"Ah. Now you have it. He dislikes mice and spiders. But there was something special about these. They couldn't be here, and they were. He felt that it was a deliberate and personal attack. He couldn't have handled much more of it."
"Where did they come from?" demanded the Captain again.
"I don't know!" snapped Paresi. "Sorry, skipper ... I'm a little unnerved. I'm not used to seeing a patient's hallucinations. Not that clearly, at any rate."
"They were Ives' hallucinations?"
"Can you recall what was said just before they appeared?"
"Uh ... something scuttled. A mouse."
"It wasn't a mouse until someone said it was." The doctor turned and looked searchingly at Hoskins, who still sat quietly over his chess.