On the ground in front of him were five girls with the tan skin and shimmering brown hair. He heard "Nic ..." and it was a multi-voiced echo. Five faces paled and ten eyes stared in panic. Fifty fingers clutched at five throats. It was a quintuple exposure of the girl he had just held in his arms, and it made his blood thin and chill in his veins.
"For heaven's sake, Nic ..." and the echo of five voices wavered through the jungle.
Caine stood motionless, staring.
Five hands reached out for help. Ten eyes pleaded.
His nerves were like flying charges of electricity along his spine.
Then there was a sudden swift movement and the five figures before him meshed into one jumbled mass and began moving away from him, through the green growth.
He watched, feeling the sweat on his forehead turn cold. This would be the way the Venusians would do it. Not force or violence, but this. A quiet, smooth absorption of the girl through illusion, the deadliest power of the Venusian. A hypnotic lock of his brain and hers so that instead of seeing four green-skinned Venusians and one girl, he saw five girls.
And there was, he knew, no way to break through the spell. The illusion would remain true to smell and touch as well as sight and hearing.
He heard five voices ring out together through the jungle. "Nic, please!"