At first, Sager was terrified when he learned what had happened to him. Then the terror was mixed with a boiling, seething hatred. A hatred of the Normals who had done this to him, and an even more terrible hatred for Houston, the "traitor."
The very emptiness of space itself seemed to vibrate with the surging violence of his hatred.
"I know," Houston told him, "you'd kill me if you could. But you can't, so forget it."
Not even the power of that hatred could touch Houston, protected as he was by the combined strength of the other four sane telepaths. He was comparatively safe.
Sager snarled like a trapped animal. "You're all insane! Look at you! The four of you, siding with a man who has betrayed us to the Normals! He—"
What Sager thought of Houston couldn't be put into words, and if it could no sane person would want to repeat the mad foulness in those words.
"This is unbearable!" Sonali thought softly.
"That's not a mind," said Dorrine, "it's a sewer."
"I suggest," said Matsukuo, "that we do a little probing. Let's find out what makes this thing tick."