"Did you wait?"
"Until he ran out of bullets."
Morgan clucked in mock disapproval. But he was not in the least shocked. In the flight from Oren, it was devil take the hindmost. Weaklings, and people who paused for pity, had long since been stung. After several weeks of agony in which the brain became the nutrient fodder of the growing Oren embryo, they were lost in the single communal mind of Oren, dead as individuals. The adult parasite assumed the bodily directive-function of the brain. The creatures so afflicted became mere cells in a total social organism now constituting a large part of humanity.
Shera suddenly whistled surprise. "Is that a cabin there?—through the trees?"
They had penetrated several hundred yards into the spruce. A black hulk lay ahead in a small clearing.
"Yeah," Morgan grunted. "I'd hoped it'd still be there."
She nudged him hard. "Close-mouthed, aren't you?"
"If I told you it was here, and then it was gone—how would you feel?"
"You think about things like that?" She stared at him curiously in the faint moonlight. "Nobody else does. Not now."
"Come on," he growled. "Let's see if it's occupied."