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came on until he stood only at arm's length from Miles. And then he stopped.
"My name is Chak'ha!" he said. He spoke the common language in a growling, throaty combination of
sounds that no human vocal apparatus could have originated or imitated, but Miles understood him
perfectly.
And even as he said it, Chak'ha launched himself, clawlike nails outstretched, tusks gleaming, at Miles'
throat, and Miles went down under the attack.
6
As he fell backward with the being called Chak'ha on top of him, Miles felt panic, like a cold jagged
knife, ripping upward through his belly toward his throat.
For a moment he froze, staring up at the toothed face snarling down into his own. Then, out of something
deep within him came a counteracting mingled fear and fury, as primitive and brutal as the attack on him.
Suddenly he was fighting back.
It was a simple, instinctive, animallike battle. They rolled on the metal deck together, fighting, scratching,
biting, and digging at each other with every nail, tooth, or bony extremity that could be used as a weapon.
For some seconds, for Miles, there was nothing but this. He had awakened into an instinctive rage out of
simple fear for his life. But just as the rage had followed fear, now something beyond rage followed again.
It came over him like drunkenness. Suddenly he found that he did not care what Chak'ha was doing to
him as long as he was able to continue what he was doing to Chak'ha. The adrenalized passion of
destruction filled and intoxicated him.
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In a second all those meanings which the activities of his upper mind had given his life until now were
washed away in the brutal impulses from the older centers of his brain. His response to the light and
shape and beauty that was art left him. His deep bond with the rest of the human race, which he had
forged before being brought to this place, was forgotten. So was Marie. All that was left was the deep,
primeval urge to tear and kill.
He had his hands now around the thick-skinned, leathery throat of Chak'ha, his thumbs digging in.
Chak'ha's saber teeth and claws were slashing him wildly, but he felt no pain he was only dimly aware
of the blood running from his many wounds.Die! Die! his mind shouted at the alien as he tried to tighten
his grip on the other's windpipe, wherever in that thick neck it might be. . . .
But Chak'ha was not dying. He was continuing to slash at Miles and gradually Miles began to realize
that his own grip was weakening. All at once he became aware that he was losing blood too fast. He was
failing.
A cold inner wind blew suddenly across his hot passion for killing. It was not the alien who was in
danger of dying it was himself. Something deeper than panic moved in him, and suddenly he
remembered all that, for a moment, he had forgotten: Marie, the paintings he had yet to do, the people of
his Earth. His grip was slipping weakly from Chak'ha's neck now but he could not afford to die!
Without warning, for the second time in his life, he went into a state of hysterical strength.
Suddenly the tiger-faced alien was a toy in his hands. Chak'ha had already pulled loose from Miles' grip
on his throat and half turned away. But Miles caught him again now easily. Miles turned him, slid one arm
under Chak'ha's right armpit and the other under the alien's left armpit, then clasped his hands together
behind the other's neck and pressed. Chak'ha's neck bent like a straw-filled tube of leather, and there
came from it a creaking sound.
Abruptly, a strange gray fog seemed to fold itself about the mind and body of Miles. Dimly, he was
aware that it was nothing his opponent had done. Nor was it anything that had been done by any of those
standing in a tight circle around him and his enemy. It was something that seemed to come from the ship
itself or from something beyond the ship.
Unexpectedly, the fires of his hysteria were smothered. His muscles lost their strength. He was aware of
his arms falling limply away, his fingers loosening and losing their grasp together behind Chak'ha's neck.
Like a man under heavy sedation, he rolled off the back of his opponent and lay lost in the gray fog.
He was vaguely aware of the fact that Chak'ha, beside him, was also lying limply, wrapped in the same
helpless condition. Above and around him, Miles was vaguely conscious of the circle of onlookers
breaking up and drifting away. He saw a couple of them pick up the lax form of Chak'ha and carry it off.
Alien hands also grasped him by the shoulders and legs and lifted him.
He felt himself being carried where or to what, he was indifferent. He saw the ceiling of a corridor
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