'But why me? You're a better mountain woman . . . .'

'You're married,' said Harker curtly. 'It'll only take one of us to shove a couple of those big slabs down. They're practically ready to fall of their own weight. Maybe nothing will happen. Maybe I'll get out all right. But it's a little silly if both of us take the risk, isn't it?'

'Yeah. But Matty . . . .'

'Listen, kid.' Harker's voice was oddly gentle. 'I know what I'm doing. Give my regards to Viki and the . . . .'

She broke off with a sharp cry of pain. Looking down incredulously, she saw her body covered with little tentative flames, feeble, flickering, gone, but leaving their red footprints behind them.

McLaren had the same thing.

They stared at each other. A helpless terror took Harker by the throat. Telekinesis again. The flower-people turning her own weapon against them. They had seen fire, and what it did, and they were copying the process in their own minds, concentrating, all of them together, the whole mental force of the colony centered on the two women. She could even understand why they focused on the skin. They had taken the sunburn-thought and applied it literally.

Fire. Spontaneous combustion. A simple, easy reaction, if you knew the trick. There was something about a burning bush . . . .

The attack came again, stronger this time. The flower-people were getting the feel of it now. It hurt. Oh God, it hurt. McLaren screamed. Her loincloth and bandages began to smolder.

What to do, thought Harker, quick, tell me what to do . . . .

The flower-people focus on us through our minds, our conscious minds. Maybe they can't get the subconscious so easily, because the thoughts are not directed, they're images, symbols, vague things. Maybe if Rory couldn't think consciously they couldn't find her . . . .

Another flare of burning, agonizing pain. In a minute they'll have the feel of it. They can keep it going . . . .

Without warning, Harker slugged McLaren heavily on the jaw and dragged her away to where the rock was firm. She did it all with astonishing strength and quickness. There was no need to save herself. She wasn't going to need herself much longer.