Brenner stood paralyzed. The laughter was filling his mind, overcrowding everything else, becoming louder, and louder, and....
It stopped. The red pulp on the floor disappeared, as did the other gnarled figure. All was silent, as it had been before.
Gone. The creature was gone, and it had not hurt him at all. Brenner, still rooted in shock, took a few more thoughtless puffs on the cigar the alien had handed him.
The third and fourth blocks moved into place.
The cigar disappeared.
Brenner could no longer feel or taste.
Rahll rolled in the darkness, his blue line-form glowing more strongly than before. His cannibal-pattern flowed into the thought of all the impulse in the universe around him; of the time when he would be able to branch out, find the stars which were concealed here by distance and time, and absorb the many life-impulses living around those stars, satisfying completely the burning hunger within him.
His third plan had worked admirably. He had shocked the other being with obtrusive actions into a state in which he did not notice inobtrusive actions. That would work again.