"Let him have it!" Shorty whispered. "Now's your chance!"
I must confess my heart was racing, with a sudden nameless premonition of terror. Thoughts are instant things. I tried to tell myself that this was just a weazened old man. Helpless, with three of us about to leap on him. Of course he was helpless! With sudden relief I saw that he had discarded his belt. It hung on the peg of a rack, several feet away from him—his belt, with his Radak-gun! Shorty saw it at the same instant.
"There's his gun, Bob! He can't reach it! We've got him!"
Of course ... I leveled my weapon. I was sighting it ... I shall always wonder if my racing thoughts were projected then to warn the Radak leader. Or did he sense us in some other way? I was standing a little out into an aisle between two big mechanisms when suddenly he lifted his head, turned and saw me. The movement, and my own startled reaction, spoiled my aim ... Mustn't fire until I was sure....
I recall that in that split-second I was aware that the old Radak had not moved. He was just staring at me with glittering eyes and his shrunken grey face horrible with the intensity of his menace. He knew of course that he couldn't reach his weapon. He didn't try....
Just a helpless, weazened old man. But as I sighted my gun I was aware of the power radiating from him. The power of his mind, pitted now against mine; his will commanding me to drop my weapon and my own brain demanding my muscles to sight it, to fire it. Conflict most horrible. It was as though every fibre of me was being outraged, seared and torn. My nerves screaming.... And my mind was screaming—kill him! Got to kill him now!... Don't drop the gun! Hold your fingers tight!