He was silent a moment, regarding the Woolly. "But we'd better get him
out of here." He gestured and frowned at Big Bill, and by sign language
and telepathy made the great creature understand. Big Bill retreated to
the airlock, fumbled with its controls, and rolled out into the lock.
The clang of the outer door brought an involuntary sigh from Leila. One
mitten-like hand had left a red smear on the opening lever....
"What happened?" inquired Paige at last.
"I don't know," said Leila confusedly. Her knees had gone boneless; she
sank into a chair. "It was just sitting against the wall there--" she
pointed "--and then it got up and killed him." She hesitated. "Paul
seemed to be trying to control it ... but I guess he couldn't."
Paige laid the gun carefully on the desk, walked deliberately to the
couch, unfolded a blanket, and went to spread it over Paul Gedner and
his dream of an Empire of Saturn. The blanket could not quite cover
everything.
* * * * *
Big Bill rolled ponderously through the inky Phoebean night, his
huge red eyes picking an aimless path by the starlight. There was a
nagging emptiness in his little mind--a vacuum left by the vanishing
of Gedner's dominant will. The vanishing Big Bill could not explain.
But he knew that he had had no thoughts that were not also those of the
godlike master, no desires that were not the reflection of Gedner's....
Dimly he remembered the final scene in the humans' dwelling. There had
been a strange storm of unprecedented emotions, and Big Bill too had
felt a moment of overpowering desire for the slight fair-headed human
who had come in the rocket.... And then came an instant of blind, alien
fury to which Big Bill could give no name or meaning, and whose deeds
he could not remember.
Nor could he know that, mirroring Gedner's passions, he had only felt
and acted as the man would have if he, instead of the Woolly, had been
the onlooker.
He had gone mad with jealousy.