the match. But the
others don't, yet they droop, too. Nobody knows how it works ..."

"But _that's_ just defensive!"

"Sure. But _that's_ just on Earth!"

"All right, dear. I won't argue any more. But I still don't understand.
Go on about the Meeting."

"Well, they said these tree-things both create and respond to the
patterned electrical impulses of the mind. It's something like the way a
doctor creates fantasies by applying a mild electric current to the
right places on a patient's brain. In the year we've been here, the
trees--or some of them--have learned to read from and transmit to our
minds. The range, they say, is around fifty feet. But you have to be
receptive--"

"Receptive?"

"Fearful. That's the condition. So I didn't want to tell you because you
_must not_ let yourself become afraid, Naomi. We're clearing trees from
the land, in certain areas. And it's their planet, after all. Fear is
their weapon and fear can kill!"

"You still--all you men--should have let us women know! What do you
think we are? Besides, I don't really believe you. How can fear kill?"

"Haven't you ever heard of a savage who gets in bad with his
witch-doctor and is killed by magic? The savage is convinced, having
seen or heard of other cases, that he _can_ be killed. The witch-doctor
sees to it he's told he _will_ be killed. And sometimes the savage
actually dies--"

"From poison, I've always thought."

"The poison of fear. The physical changes that accompany fear, magnified
beyond belief by belief itself."

"But how in the world could all this have affected Cappy? He wasn't a
savage. And he was elderly, Ted. A bad heart, maybe. A stroke.
Anything."

"He passed his pre-flight physical only a year ago. And--well, he lived
all alone. He was careful not to let you see it, but I know he worried
about these three trees on his place. And I know he got back from the
Meeting in a worried state of mind. Then, obviously, the trees
moved--grouped themselves around his cabin within easy range. But don't
be afraid of them, Naomi. So long as you're not, they can't hurt you.
They're not bothering us now."

"No. But where's Richard?"

Naomi's eyes swept past Ted, encompassing the cabin. No Richard! He'd
been left outside ...

Glass tinkled and crashed as she flung back the cabin door. "Richard!
Richard!"

Her child was not in sight. Nor within earshot, it seemed.

"Richard Heckscher! Where are you?" Sanity returned with the
con