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its ears, see with its eyes, and feel to some degree what it felt. These were sensory impressions only.
Could he hope to bridge the gap, and induce motor responses in the creature s muscles? Would he be
able to force it to walk, turn its head, move its arms, and, generally, make it act as his body? The attack
on the ship was being made by a group working together, thinking together, feeling together. By gaining
control of one member of such a group, could he exercise some control over all?
His momentary vision must have come through the eyes of one individual. What he had experienced so
far did not suggest any kind of group contact. He was like a man imprisoned in a dark room with a hole
in the wall in front of him covered with layers of translucent material. Through this filtered a vague light.
Occasionally, images penetrated the blur, and he had glimpses of the outside world. He could be fairly
certain that the pictures were accurate, but that did not apply to the sounds that came through another
hole on a side wall, or the sensations that came to him through still other holes in the ceiling and floor.
Humans could hear frequencies up to 20,000 a second. That was where some races started to hear.
Under hypnosis, men could be conditioned to laugh uproariously when they were being tortured, and
shriek with pain when tickled. Stimulation that meant pain to one life form, could mean nothing at all to
another.
Mentally, Grosvenor let the tensions seep out of him. There was nothing for him to do but to relax and
wait. He waited.
It occurred to him presently that there might be a connection between his own thoughts and the
sensations he received. That picture of the inside of the building what had he thought just before it
came? Principally, he recalled, he had visualized the structure of the eye. The connection was so obvious
that his mind trembled with excitement. There was another thing, also. Until now, he had concentrated on
the notion of seeing and feeling with the nervous system of the individual. Still the realization of his hopes
depended on his establishing contact with, and control of, the group of minds that had attacked the ship.
He saw his problem, suddenly, as one that would require control of his own brain. Certain areas would
have to be virtually blacked out, kept at minimum performance levels. Others must be made extremely
sensitive, so that all incom-ing sensations found it easier to seek expression through them. As a highly
trained auto-hypnotic subject, he could accomplish both objectives by suggestion. Vision came first, of
course. Then muscular control of the individual, through whom the group was working against him.
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Flashes of colored light interrupted his concentration. Grosvenor regarded them as evidence of the
effectiveness of his suggestions. He knew that he was on the right track when his vision cleared suddenly,
and stayed clear. The scene was the same. His control still sat on one of the roosts inside one of the tall
buildings. Hoping fervently that the vision was not going to fade, Grosvenor began to concen-trate on
moving the Riim s muscles. The trouble was that the ultimate explanation of why a movement could occur
at all was obscure. His visualization had to be on a level that was already gross. Nothing happened.
Shocked but determined, Grosvenor tried symbol hypnosis, using a single cue word to cover the entire
complex process.
Slowly, one of the attenuated arms came up. Another cue, and his control stood up cautiously. Then he
made it turn its head. The act of looking reminded the bird-being that that drawer and that cabinet and
that closet were mine . The memory barely touched the conscious level. The creature knew its own
possessions and accepted the fact without concern.
Grosvenor had a hard time fighting down his excitement. With tense patience, he had the bird-being get
up from a sitting position, raise its arms, lower them, and walk back and forth along the roost. Finally, he
made it sit down again. He must have been keyed up, his brain responsive to the slightest suggestion.
Because he had barely started to concentrate again when his whole being was flooded by a message that
seemed to affect every level of his thought and feeling. More or less automatically, Grosvenor translated
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