He switched on his own rotor, felt nausea cramp at his stomach when the gravity field pulled at his neck muscles. Hooking his foot beneath the ship's rotor, he helped Palmer fasten the rotor over his greyed hair, then handed the older man one of the ati-guns.
"Come on," he said. "We've got some hunting to do."
He led the way, jumping from the port-door, the gun blasting in his hand, conscious of the Lanka manager's bulky body at his side.
They went side by side down the field, the wailing roar of their guns screaming in the air, the slugs dying hideously, one by one.
And then Jean was in Don Denton's arms, her slender shoulders shaking in a torrent of sobs, and he was soothing her with a clumsy gentleness that felt strange and good to him.
They sat in the control room of the great freighter, Moonstone, their faces were turned to where Don Denton stood at the control panel. The trouble shooter grinned at the fifteen people that made up his audience, and he summed up all of his thoughts and theories.
"Those slugs," he explained, "were little more than animated brains. They lived somewhere in the oceans, and probably discovered the Lanka camps by accident. They had no ways of subduing you men by physical means, because of their grub-like bodies, so they took control of your minds. Unluckily, they failed to gain control of one of you men and of both of the freighter pilots; and the three men tried to escape in a small rocket. The rocket crashed, killing all three of the men."
Jim Palmer nodded. "That's what I've got figured out," he said, "But I've just got a hazy memory of the past three months."
"Well," Don Denton continued, "these slugs must have got the idea of going to Earth and the other inhabited planets, and taking control of them. But they needed your help and a space pilot to transport you and them. They put all of you in a cataleptic state, while waiting for some space pilot to appear. They left a guard, the slug I shot down the moment I begin searching the camp. But before he died, he sent out a call that brought a single slug into camp."