The Oren were one and their strength was legion. They had it all figured out, in their own parasitical, cold-blooded way. But they'd neglected one she-cat of a girl....
e--your brain would be replaced by the parasite!"
"I wouldn't know. Apparently it's not."
Morgan couldn't believe it. But he sat stunned in the darkness. What was this thing in the cabin with him? Was she still human? He began inching along the wall, but a board creaked.
"I don't want to shoot you, Morgan. Don't rush me. Besides--there's something outside, I tell you."
"Why should you worry about that?--if you've really been stung."
"The first sting evidently didn't take. The next one might. That's why."
"You weren't sick?"
"During the incubation period? I was sick. Plenty sick."
Morgan shook his head thoughtfully. If she had been through the violent illness of the parasite's incubation, she should now have one of the squeaking little degenerates in place of a brain. The fibers of the small animals grew slowly along the neural arcs, replacing each nerve cell, forming a junction at each synapse. There was reason to believe that the parasite prese
