Under the guidance of Seed, Jack Caswell stepped in front of his wife. He tore the pointer out of her hand and threw it aside.
Seed burst from Jack's fingertips, seized Laura, and held her, although she struggled fiercely to pull free. Opening the mouth of its host, Seed shot forth a thick stalk, pierced the woman's breast, and surged into her, triumphant.
NO!
Laura felt it slithering along her nervous system, questing coldly in her brain, and she denied it. With the iron determination that she had brought to her campaign to make Jack walk, with the unlimited patience that she always brought to the instruction of her students, with the unshakable sense of self-worth and individuality with which she faced every day of her life, she fought the thing at every turn. When it cast restraining bands of psychic energy around her mind, she snapped them and threw them off. When it tried to drag her into a dark place and imprison her there under psychic stones, she threw off those weights as well and soared to the surface. She sensed the thing's surprise, and she took advantage of its confusion, delving into its mind, learning about it. In an instant she realized that it dwelled in all the minds of its hosts simultaneously, so she reached out to Jack and found him—
— I love you, Jack, I love you more than life itself—
— and she tore at his mental bonds with all the enthusiasm that she had shown when assisting him in therapeutic exercises for his ruined legs. Questing outward across the psychic net by which Seed linked its hosts, she found Jamie Watley—
— You're a sweet kid, Jamie, the sweetest, and I've always wanted to tell you that it doesn't matter what kind of people your parents are, doesn't matter if they're selfish mean-spirited drunks; what matters is that you have the capacity to be far better than they are; you have the capacity to lave and to learn and to know the joy of a fulfilling life—
— and Seed swarmed over her, trying to draw her consciousness back into her own body, out of the minds of the others. However, in spite of its billions of years of experience and its vast knowledge acquired from hundreds of doomed species, it found itself unequal to the task. Laura examined it and judged it inferior because it did not need love, could not give love. Its will was weaker than human will because humans could love, and in their love they found a reason to strive, a reason to seek order out of chaos, to make better lives for those whom they cherished. Love gave purpose to will and made it infinitely stronger. To some species, Seed might be a welcome master, offering the false security of a single purpose, a single law. But to humankind, Seed was anathema—
— Tommy, you can tear loose if you'll think of your sister Edna, because I know you love Edna more than anything; and you, Melissa, you must think of your father and mother because they love you so much, because they almost lost you when you were a baby (did you know that?) and losing you would have broken them; and you, Helen, you're one heck of a little girl, and I couldn't love you more if you were my own, you have such a sweet concern for others, and I know you can throw this damn thing off because you're all love from head to toe; and you, Jane Halliwell, I know you love your son and your husband because your love for Richie is so evident in the self-confidence you've given him and in the manners and courtesy you've taught him; you, Jimmy Corman, oh, yes, you talk tough and you act tough, but I know how much you love your brother Harry and how sad it makes you that Harry was born with a deformed hand, and I know that if someone made fun of poor Harry's twisted hand, you'd fight him with every bit of strength you have, so turn that love for Harry against this thing, this Seed, and destroy it, don't let it have you because if it gets you then it'll get Harry too—
— and Laura walked into the room, among the possessed, touching them, hugging this one, lovingly squeezing the hand of the next one, looking into their eyes and using the power of love to bring them to her, out of their darkness and into the light with her.
AS HE SHATTERED THE BONDS THAT HELD HIM, AS HE CAST OFF SEED, Jamie Watley experienced a wave of dizziness and actually blacked out for an instant, not even long enough to collapse to the floor. Blackness flickered through him, and he swayed, but he came to his senses as his knees were buckling. He grabbed the edge of Mrs. Caswell's desk and steadied himself.
When he looked around the classroom, he saw the adults and the other children in similar shaky postures. Many were looking down in disgust, and Jamie saw that they were staring at the slick, mucus-wet black substance of Seed, which had been expelled from them and which writhed in pieces on the classroom floor.
Most of the alien tissue seemed to be dying, and a few pieces were actually decomposing with an awful stench. But suddenly one lump coalesced into the shape of a football. In seconds it formed a mottled blue-green-black shell, and as if bazooka-shot, it exploded through the ceiling of the room, showering them with plaster and bits of lath. It smashed through the roof of the one-story schoolhouse and disappeared straight up into the blue October sky.
TEACHERS AND KIDS CAME FROM ALL OVER THE BUILDING TO FIND OUT what had happened, and later the police arrived. The following day, both uniformed air-force officers and plainclothes government men visited the Caswell house among others. Throughout, Jack would not move far from Laura. He preferred to hold her — or at least her hand — and when they had to separate for a few minutes, he held fast to a mental picture of her, as if that image were a psychic totem that guaranteed her safe return.
Eventually the furor subsided, and the reporters went away, and life returned to normal — or as close to normal as it would ever be. By Christmas, Jack's nightmares began to diminish in both frequency and vividness, though he knew that he would need years to scrub out the residue of fear that was left from Seed's possession of him.
On Christmas Eve, sitting on the floor in front of the tree, sipping wine and eating walnuts, he and Laura exchanged gifts, for Christmas Day itself was always reserved for visiting their families. When the packages had been opened, they moved to a pair of armchairs in front of the fireplace.
After sitting quietly for a while, sipping at a final glass of wine and watching the flames, Laura said, "I've got one more gift that will have to be opened soon."
"One more? But I've nothing more for you."
"This is a gift for everyone," she said.
Her smile was so enigmatic that Jack was instantly intrigued. He leaned sideways in his chair and reached for her hand. "What're you being so mysterious about?"
"The thing healed you," she said.
His legs were propped on a hassock, as healthy and useful as they had been before his accident.
"At least some good came of it," he said.
"More than you know," she said. "During those awful moments when I was trying to expel the thing from my mind and body, while I was trying to get the kids to expel it from theirs, I was acutely aware of the creature's own mind. Heck, I was within its mind. And since I'd noticed that you were healed and figured the creature must have been responsible for knitting up your legs, I poked around in its thoughts to see how it had worked that miracle."
"You don't mean—"