"There must be something we can do for him… something," the Rowan said, choked with tears.

Afra looked down at her sadly and compassionately, and patted her frail shoulder.

"What? Not even you can reach all the way out to him. Patrol Squadrons are needed by what you've said, but we can't send them. Did you ask him if he's tried to find help on his own planet?" "-.

"He needs Prime help and—"

"You're all tied to your little worlds with the umbilical cord of space-fear," Afra finished for her, a blunt summation of the problem that made her wince for her devastating inability.

Kerrist! The radar warning! Ackerman's mental shout startled both of them.

Instantly the Rowan linked her mind to his as Ackerman plunged toward the little-used radar screen. As she probed into space, she found the intruder, a highly powered projectile, arrowing in from behind Uranus. Guiltily she flushed, for she ought to have detected it away beyond the radar's range.

There was no time to run up the idling dynamos.

The projectile was coming in too fast.

I want a wide-open mind from everyone on this moon! The Rowan's broadcast was inescapable. She felt the surge of power as forty-eight talents on Callisto, including Ackerman's ten-year-old son, lowered their shields. She picked up their power—from the least yond Jupiter, and reached the alien bomb. She had to wrestle for a moment with the totally unfamiliar molecular structure of its constituents. Then, with her augmented energy, it was easy enough to deactivate the trigger and then scatter the fissionables from the warhead into Jupiter's seething mass.

She released the others who had joined her and fell back into the couch.

"How in hell did that thing find us?" Afra asked from the chair in which he had slumped.

She shook her head wearily. Without the dynamos, there had been no surge of power to act as the initial carrier wave for her touch. Even with the help of the others—and all of them put together didn't add up to one-third the strength of another Prime—it had been a wearying exercise. She thought of Deneb—alone, without an FT & T Station to assist him—doing this again, and again, and again—and her heart twisted.

Warm up the dynamos, Brian—there'll be more of those missiles.

Afra looked up, startled.

Prime Rowan of Callisto Station alerting Earth Prime Reidinger and all other primes! Prepare for possible attack by fissionable projectiles of alien origin. Alert all radar watch stations and patrol forces. She lost her official calm and added angrily. We've got to help Deneb now—we've got to! Ifs no longer an isolated aggression against an outlying colony. Ifs a concerted attack on our heart world. Ifs an attack on every prime in the nine-star league.

Rowan! Before Reidinger got more than her name into her mind, she opened to him and showed the five new projectiles driving toward Callisto. For the love of little apples! Reidinger's mind radiated incredulity. What has our little man been stirring up?

Shall we find out? Rowan asked with deadly sweetness.

Reidinger transmitted impatience, fury, misery and then shock as he gathered her intention. I?

Your plan won't work. Ifs impossible. We can't merge minds to fight. All of us are too egocentric. Too unstable. We'd burn out, fighting each other.

You, me, Altair, Betelgeuse and Capella. We can do it. If I can deactivate one of those hell missiles with only forty-eight minor talents and no power for help, five primes plus full power ought to be able to turn the trick. We can knock the missiles off. Then we can merge with Deneb to help him, that'll make six of us. Show me the ET who could stand up to such a counterassault!

Look girl, Reidinger replied, almost pleading, We don't have his measure. We can't just merge—He could split us apart, or we could burn him up. We don't know him. We can't gauge a telepath of unknown ability.

You'd better catch that missile coming at you, she said calmly. I can't handle more than ten at a time and keep up a sensible conversation.

She felt Reidinger's resistance to her plan weakening. She pushed the advantage. If Deneb's been handling a planet-wide barrage, that's a pretty good indication of his strength. I'll handle the ego-merge because I damned well want to. Besides, there isn't any other course open to us now, is there? We could launch patrol squadrons. We should have done that the first time he asked.

It's too late now.

Their conversation was taking the briefest possible time and yet more missiles were coming in. All the Prime stations were under bombardment.

All right, Reidinger said in angry resignation, and contacted the other Primes.

No, no, no! You'll burn her out—burn her out, poor thing! Old Siglen from Altair babbled. Let us stick to our last—we dare not expose ourselves, no, no, no! The ET's would attack us then.

Shut up, Ironpants, David said.

Shoulder to the wheel, you old wart, Capella chimed in waspishly. Hit hard first, that's safest.

Look, Rowan, Reidinger said. Siglen's right. He could burn you out. I'll take the chance.

Damn Deneb for starting all this! Reidinger didn't quite shield his aggravation. We've got to do it. And now!

Tentatively at the outset, and then with stunningly increased force, the unleashed power of the other FT & T Primes, augmented by the mechanical surge of the five stations' generators, was forced through the Rowan. She grew, grew and only dimly saw the puny ET bombardment swept aside like so many mayflies. She grew, grew until she felt herself a colossus, larger than ominous Jupiter. Slowly, carefully, tentatively, because the massive power was braked only by her slender conscious control, she reached out to Deneb.

She spun on, in grandeur, astounded by the limitless force she had become. She passed the small black dwarf that was the midway point. Then she felt the mind she searched for; a tired mind, its periphery wincing with weariness but doggedly persevering its evasive actions.

Oh, Deneb, Deneb, you're still intact! She was so relieved, so grateful to find him fighting his desperate battle that they merged before her ego could offer even a token resistance. She abandoned her most guarded self to him and, with the surrender, the massed power she held flowed into him. The tired mind of the man grew, healed, strengthened and blossomed until she was a mere fraction of the total, lost in the greater part of this immense mental whole. Suddenly she saw with his eyes, heard with his ears and felt with his touch, was immersed in the titanic struggle.

The greenish sky above was pitted with mushroom puffs, and the raw young hills around him were scarred with deflected missiles. Easily now, he was turning aside the warheads aimed at him.

Let's go up there and find out what they are, the Reidinger segment said. Now!

Deneb approached the thirty mile-long ships. The mass-mind took indelible note of the intruders. Then, off-handedly, Deneb broke the hulls of twenty-nine of the ET ships, spilling the contents into space. To the occupants of the survivor, he gave a searing impression of the Primes and the indestructability of the worlds in this section of space. With one great heave, he threw the lone ship away from his exhausted planet, set it hurtling farther than it had come, into uncharted black immensity.

He thanked the Primes for the incomparable compliment of an ego-merge and explained in a millisecond the tremendous gratitude of his planet, based on all that Denebians had accomplished in three generations which had been so nearly obliterated and emphasized by their hopes for the future.

The Rowan felt the links dissolving as the other Primes, murmuring withdrawal courtesies, left him. Deneb caught her mind fast to his and held on. When they were alone, he opened all this thoughts to her, so that now she knew him as intimately as he knew her.