"Sorry," he murmured. "We can stop soon. But they'll be chasing along
the road looking for us. I want to get into the spruce forest first."
She was silent for a time, then said; "With Earlich, it was the other
way around."
"Earlich? The fat boy? What do you mean?"
"I always had to wait on him."
"Did you wait?"
"Until he ran out of bullets."
Morgan clucked in mock disapproval. But he was not in the least
shocked. In the flight from Oren, it was devil take the hindmost.
Weaklings, and people who paused for pity, had long since been stung.
After several weeks of agony in which the brain became the nutrient
fodder of the growing Oren embryo, they were lost in the single
communal mind of Oren, dead as individuals. The adult parasite assumed
the bodily directive-function of the brain. The creatures so afflicted
became mere cells in a total social organism now constituting a large
part of humanity.
Shera suddenly whistled surprise. "Is that a _cabin_ there?--through
the trees?"
They had penetrated several hundred yards into the spruce. A black
hulk lay ahead in a small clearing.
"Yeah," Morgan grunted. "I'd hoped it'd still be there."