The victims of the subsonic slowly returned to consciousness as the minutes passed.
Beth woke first. She stared at the unconscious form of Wrynn's wife and said, "You went to quite an extent to prove a point!"
You were in no danger, came the answer.
The others were awakening now, sitting up, rubbing their foreheads. Harris watched them. His head throbbed too, as if he had been stunned by the subsonic device himself.
"Suppose you had been knocked out by the subsonic too?" Beth said to the life within the giant woman. "He would have killed us."
The subsonic could not affect me.
Harris said, "That—embryo can think and act?" His voice was a harsh whisper.
Beth nodded. "The next generation. It reaches sentience while still in the womb. By the time it's born it's fully aware."
"And I thought it was a hoax," Harris said dizzily. He felt dazed. The values of his life had been shattered in a moment, and it would not be easy to repair them with similar speed.
"No. No hoax. And we knew you'd try to trick us when we let you go. At least, Wrynn said you would. He's telepathic too, though he can only receive impressions. He can't transmit telepathically to others the way his son can."