We couldn't break through."

She was removing the wires from Horng, who sat unmoving, staring dully
over Rynason's shoulder at the wall behind him. "You should have seen
yourself when you were under," she said. "I wanted to break the
connection before, but I wasn't sure...."

Rynason sat forward and flexed the muscles of his shoulders and back.
They ached as though they had been tense for an hour, and his stomach
was still knotted tight.

"There's a real block there," he said. "It's like a thousand screaming
birds flapping in your face. When you get that far into his mind, you
feel it too." He sat staring down at his feet, exhausted mentally and
physically.

She sat on the bench and looked closely at him. "Anything else?"

"Yes--Horng. At the end, the second time I went in, I could feel him,
not only fighting me, but ... hating me." He looked up at her. "Can you
imagine actually feeling him, right next to you in your mind like you
were one person, hating you?"

Across from them, the huge figure of the alien slowly stood up and
looked at them for several long seconds, then turned and left the
building.