of the soldiers behind them.

The first thing they knew of such a movement was when they felt their
arms pinioned to their sides with crushing force, and looked down to
find a pair of hard, jointed forelegs coiled about their bodies. In
answer to some voiceless command, one of the termites with the conical
heads had approached behind them and wound a leg around each.

Sweat stood out on Denny's forehead at the repellent touch of that
living bond. He turned and twisted wildly.

Jim was struggling madly in the grip of the other foreleg. Great
shoulders bulging with the effort, muscles standing in knots on his
heavy arms, he nearly succeeded in breaking free. Denny felt the tie
that bound him relax ever so little as the monster centered its
attention on the stronger man.

With a last effort, he tore his right arm free, and wriggled partly
around in the thing's grip. He raised the spear and plunged it
slantingly down into the hideous body.

This type of termite was armored more poorly than the others. Only its
head was plated with horn; chest and abdomen were soft and vulnerable as
those of any humble worker in the mound. The spear tore into it for
two-thirds its length. There was a squeak--the first sound they had
heard--from the wounded monster. The clutching forelegs tightened
terribly, then began to loosen, quivering spasmodically as they slowly
relinquished their grasp.

Denny bounded free and again sent the length of his spear into the
loathsome body. Jim, meanwhile, had leaped toward his fallen spear. He
stooped to pick it up--and was lost!

* * * * *

Obeying another wordless order, one of the ghastly, syringe-headed
monsters had stepped out of line with the start of the short struggle.
This one bounded on Jim just as he leaned over for his weapon.

Denny shouted a warning, started to run to his friend's aid. The dying
termite, with a last burst of incredible vitality, caught his leg and
held him.

In an instant it was done. The termite with the distorted head had
drenched Jim with a brown, thick liquid that covered him from shoulder
to feet--and Jim was writhing helplessly on the floor.

Denny burst loose at last from the feebly clutching foreleg. He
straightened, poised his spear, and with a strength born of near madness
shot it at the syringe-headed thing's chest.

But this one was different, armored to the full save for its soft
cranium. The steel bar glanced harmles