smiled at him and permitted him
to live.

He even completed his question for him, and answered it. "Why did they
not kill then? They had something else on their minds--fungoids!" He
laughed uproariously at his macabre joke. "And in their minds too!"

The lawyer's blue eyes gazed at him steadily and he stopped laughing. In
the bated hush of the courtroom he said softly, "What a pity I'm not an
alien too. You could have the fungoids destroy me!"

He laughed again helplessly, the tears running down his cheeks.

* * * * *

The Chief Justice adjourned the Court then and the prisoner sauntered to
his comfortable quarters in front of his frightened guards.

That night, in his own living room, the Chief Justice danced an agonized
fandango in front of his horror-stricken wife and the anonymous lawyer
sat in his apartment, staring at the blank wall. He was glad the aliens
had not made the traitor telepathic too.

He had found the chink in his armor.

The neural paralysis, the murders by remote control, were acts of a
conscious will. He had himself admitted that if his mind was destroyed
his powers would be destroyed with it. The aliens had not sought revenge
because their minds were totally occupied with saving themselves. The
stricken ones had simply lost the power.

The knowledge was useless to him. There was no way they could attack his
mind without his knowing it.

Possibly they could steal away his consciousness by drugging or
bludgeoning, but it would be racial suicide to attempt it. In the split
moment of realization he would kill every human being on Earth. There
would be nobody left to operate on his brain, to make him a mindless,
powerless idiot for the rest of time. For any period of time, he
corrected himself. His brain would heal again.

It was useless to think about it. There was nothing they could use
against his invincibility. The only hope was to attack him unawares ...
and if that hope was a fraction less than a certainty it could only mean
final and absolute catastrophe.

The lawyer looked at his watch. It was four in the morning.

He went into the kitchenette and then shrugged himself into his coat. He
walked through the silent streets, past the city hospital where the
Chief Justice lay in agony while the motor impulses from his nerve
centers wrenched and twisted his body. He entered the foyer of the
luxury hotel where the race betrayer was held prisoner and took t