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The brains even now were dying. The choice was: bodies of isuanacs or death for the brains. The scientist and the adventurer had chosen. Circumstances had required their use. Ku Sui's attempt to kill the brains, thus inflicting a time limit: the presence of the band of isuanacs near the laboratory; each circumstance with a long train of other, minor ones behind it.
One by one the isuanacs dropped with the falling of the etheloid into unconsciousness and that was their farewell to the brains, each one debauched either by isuan-drug or skill of genius, that they had known. And movement began in the laboratory.
Carse noted their position and looked up at Friday. "Get the Master Scientist for me, please," he requested. The radio connection took only seconds: and then he said into the microphone: "Eliot? We're directly above you, as you probably have seen. All well?" "Yes, Carse. The laboratory's in readiness. But those isuanacs they're still outside." "I've seen them, and I'm going to drive them away.
The band of isuanacs came nearer and nearer, and then were to the right. Completely oblivious of the great bulk hovering above them, they continued their grubbing through the swamp; and then the asteroid was over the jungle beyond them, and lowering its craggy under-side. The under-side brushed the crown of the jungle.
These creatures were the result of Hawk Carse's desperate search. They had composed, with one other, the band of isuanacs that had been rooting in the swamp at the end of the lake when the asteroid had first arrived. The Hawk had remembered them, and had quickly seen that they were the only answer to the problem.
And so, with Ban Wilson, he had gone out for them, his mind steeled to the ghastly thought of the great scientists' brains in such bodies. In space-suits they had swept down on them. There had been no time for considerate measures: the four isuanacs had been abruptly knocked out by the impact of the great suits swooping against them, and carried back to the laboratory.
"There were two others, but we let them go. They were worse." The gray eyes looked steadily at Eliot Leithgow. "I know," the Hawk said. "It's horrible but it can't be helped. It was these or nothing. There was no choice." Hawk Carse had fulfilled his promise. He had brought back four isuanacs. Ordeal Five bodies lay on the operating tables in Eliot Leithgow's laboratory.
The minutes were slipping by, bringing the two-hour deadline ever closer, but he did not skimp his customary caution on approaching the laboratory. From the control room, he swept the electelscope over the surrounding terrain, and soon sighted the band of isuanacs Eliot Leithgow had mentioned.
"There's a small band of isuanacs foraging around somewhere in the neighborhood, but otherwise nothing. They're harmless " "But possibly observant," finished Carse. "All right I'll clear them away before descending to the lab. Until later, Eliot." Carse switched off the microphone and turned to catch Friday's shocked expression. Carse looked inquiringly at his dark satellite. "What's wrong?"
The trees bent, crackled and broke, as if swept by a vicious but silent hurricane. Only a moment of contact; but in that moment a square mile of interwoven trees and vines was swept low and to the isuanacs the effect, as was intended, was terrifying. They stared at the phenomenon. There had been no sound, no whip of wind, nothing yet all those trees had bent and crashed splintering to the ground.
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