Tourist Planet
New Worlds – Oct/Nov/December 1956
(1956)*
James White
illustrated by QUINN

Contents

Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI

-

It is a great pleasure to be able to offer for your reading enjoyment James White's first novel-length story as a three-part serial. We particularly like the manner in which he has contrived each instalment, making it practically impossible for you to guess what is coming next. So let us start with the 'dying grandfathers' and some considerable mystery amongst the Security organisations of the world.

-

Chapter I

	The sunset was unbelievable, an explosion of colour so breathtaking that its sheer resplendence seemed somehow to be in questionable taste. It was a shade too beautiful, Lockhart thought. Bathed in that amber flood of light, the evening strollers along the boulevard Saint-Michel were transformed into actors in some colourful, romantic drama instead of the drably commonplace characters that the majority of them were. Almost, it brought warmth to the face of the old man who was dying at the café table across the street.

	Lockhart's eyes rested on the old man only long enough to be sure that he was still alive, then he shifted them back to the crowd, the sunset, and to the car containing three of Hedley's men which was parked further along the street. The thought returned then of what he was here to do, and the sunset abruptly lost its appeal: the pulsing bands of fire filling the western sky became nothing more than an interesting group of meteorological phenomena which gave strong indications of rain before morning.

	A sharp intake of breath made Lockhart look quickly at the man sharing the café table with him. Hedley was staring anxiously across the street and Lockhart saw the cause of the agent's anxiety at once. Two people were trying to talk to the old man.

	The girl looked vaguely Spanish—dark complexion with that peculiar combination of thin, aristocratic nose and wide, full lips. Her hair was dark brown or black, and her figure was attracting the appreciative gaze of a passing group of students. Her companion was a small, thin-faced man whose clothing seemed to indicate a certain degree of effeminacy: he was pretty rather than handsome. They were bending over the old man and the girl was apparently asking a question. After a pause she repeated it, louder.

	Why, thought Lockhart suddenly, I know that girl!

	"What's she saying?" Hedley said, holding his voice to a conversational level with difficulty. "What language is it, at least?"

	Lockhart shook his head. "She's too far away to tell," he replied. "But I know her—she isn't anyone you're looking for."

	Hedley made an annoyed sound. "I'll be the judge of that. How long have you known her?"

	"I saw her last night at a concert," Lockhart said. "We didn't speak." He paused awkwardly, thinking of how this would sound to Hedley, then went on. "It's rather complicated, but I know she isn't the type to be mixed up in this. You see—"

	"This is the first time," Hedley cut in, "that one of these old men has been contacted by someone who might be an enemy agent. Maybe they are just a couple of kind-hearted types who think he's sick and want to help, but again, maybe they are nothing of the sort." He exhaled irritably. "So, despite your unsolicited testimonial, Doctor, I'll have them followed."

	He took a handkerchief from his breast pocket, shook it out twice and blew his nose. A hundred yards away one of his men got out of the waiting car and merged with the crowd. The couple across the street had unknowingly acquired a shadow, and Lockhart, who was firmly convinced that the agent was wasting his time, kept angrily

	Usually Lockhart was not so touchy about things, but Hedley— and the job the agent wanted him to do—had kept him on edge all day.

-

	Prior to that morning, Lockhart had not seen Hedley since the time during the closing months of the war when an air ambulance had set him down, literally, on the hospital's front lawn. Lockhart had been attached to a south coast Bomber Group at the time, doing his best to repair partially wrecked men so that they could go back to wrecking more aircraft. Hedley had kept him busy that day and most of the following night, he remembered.

	The holes in Hedley's legs and side were flesh wounds and not in themselves dangerous, but from his condition upon arrival Lockhart guessed that he must have crawled through about a mile of mud before they had been dressed. With the antibiotics he had been given battling the infection raging through his system, it was no surprise that the patient had been delirious. Consequently, Lockhart had found out a lot he wasn't supposed to know.

	Hedley was an Intelligence officer. That, in itself, would not have made Lockhart uncomfortable. What did so was the large number of high-ranking officers who congregated around Hedley's bed, listening to his every mumbled word, and who hung around in relays until the patient had passed out of danger and been transferred somewhere else. Hedley, it seemed, had been an important man.

	Before leaving, however, the agent had thanked him, shaken hands, and advised him to keep quiet about anything he may have heard until such times as he was writing his memoirs.

	Lockhart had kept quiet long after the need for secrecy was gone— not, he suspected, because he was a close-mouthed type, but simply because Hedley had requested it of him. When Hedley asked, refusal was virtually impossible, and when he ordered something done, Lockhart was sure that it became nothing less than an entry in the pages of future history. With a feeling almost of awe, Lockhart remembered how Hedley had, within ten minutes of meeting him, talked him into accepting a rather unpleasant task. A task, moreover, which could leave him open to grave charges of unethical practice.

	Was he a doctor, Lockhart asked himself suddenly, or a ghoul ...?

	Simply, Hedley wanted the old man across the street watched until, in Lockhart's opinion, he was at the point of death. Only then could the fast-acting poison, which had made previous attempts at questioning these people impossible, be removed, thus allowing the agent a chance to obtain some desperately needed information.

	Something was afoot, Hedley had told him; something big, dirty, and the worst threat to peace since the invasion of Poland. The agent had been so deadly serious about the matter that he had been positively frightening. And though Lockhart had agreed to help, he could not quite see how this white-haired old man—and the others like him that Hedley had mentioned—could be a threat to anything.

-

	Lockhart's train of thought came to a sudden stop as the couple across the street straightened and began to move away. For an instant, Lockhart thought that the girl's face showed something like disappointment, but the fading light made it difficult to read features with any degree of accuracy. And when he brought his attention back to the old man, he felt his mouth going dry.

	The old man's features had gone suddenly slack, and the eyes had closed. Despite the ruddy glow from that spectacular sunset his face was still and chalk white. Lockhart wet his lips. When he spoke he hardly recognised his own voice.

	"Uh ... Now, I think," he said.

	Without speaking, Hedley slid two black leather bags from under their table and pushed the one containing the medical kit towards Lockhart. They rose and crossed the street quickly. Lockhart knew what he had to do, but for a moment he hesitated.

	There was a strange dignity about the lined and wrinkled countenance, an aura of power and keen intelligence now long gone. The steady breakdown in the life processes was rapidly wiping all expression and character from the face, but enough remained for Lockhart to know that he would have liked this man. He had a feeling which affected him in cases of this kind—an overwhelming respect, and pity, and love of the aged. Maybe he should have specialised in Geriatrics. But he felt that any indignity to which he might subject this old man would be nothing less than a moral offence, like disordering the bones of a dead saint.

	"Hurry!" Hedley whispered fiercely.

	The agent had his bag open. He was lifting out what a lay observer might have mistaken for a sphygmomanometer—though the same observer would have referred to it out of self defence as 'the thing doctors used to take blood pressure'. Actually it was a heavily disguised and very sensitive tape-recorder. Hedley set it going and moved it closer to the old man, then left to intercept the café proprietor who was bearing down on them.

	Callously, efficiently, Lockhart's hands went to work. The emotional and untrustworthy sector of his brain was cut off, isolated—especially from control of his hands.

	He forced the mouth open, wide. He tested the teeth: they were all good—which surprised him—and they rang solid. Carefully he scrutinised the inside of the mouth: empty. He examined the gums again, and raised the tongue: still nothing. Where was the thing?

	A gendarme had now joined Hedley and the café proprietor. In faultless French, the agent was gravely taking them into his confidence about the distressing condition of the old gentleman whose life his colleague was striving so gallantly to save. With the proper amount of respect due to one authority from another in a different though doubtless equally important field, Hedley appealed for the gendarme's aid in the struggle. He was most eloquent. The gendarme, obviously feeling about seven feet tall and broad in proportion, moved importantly onto the pavement to disperse the crowd which was beginning to gather.

-

	Lockhart badly needed advice on other possible methods of concealing poison, but the café proprietor was keeping Hedley busy with morbid questions regarding things medical. He gritted his teeth. Time was running out. The old man's life expectancy could be measured now in minutes, perhaps seconds. Prising open the unresisting jaw, Lockhart had another look. Suddenly he saw it.

	It had been a flat, lozenge-shaped capsule of some gelatanous substance moulded around a few drops of greyish liquid. Body heat and saliva had dissolved the capsule to wafer thinness, except where the liquid made a tiny bulge in its centre. Lockhart had mistaken it at first for a small mouth ulcer. Now he knew it for what it was, but he still had to get it out. While it remained, the slightest pressure of the old man's tongue would burst it, and Hedley would be looking elsewhere for his information.

	The partly melted capsule was fragile, slippery, and it adhered far back on the roof of the mouth. Carefully, so as not to nip through it and allow the highly lethal contents to trickle down the old man's throat, Lockhart began to slide it forward. Sweat broke on him as his probing instrument pressed briefly behind the tongue, causing involuntary, retching contractions of the throat, and he nearly lost it. But finally he had it between his fingers, then out.

	Without giving his mind time to dwell on how close a thing it had been, he set about the second half of the job.

	The shots were already prepared. He injected heart stimulants, then broke the seal of a small tube of compressed oxygen and let the gas play briefly over the open mouth and nostrils. When he came to the point where the pentothal-derivative, which was popularly referred to as 'Truth Drug,' was being administered, the old man was conscious enough to wince. Lockhart listened intently to the sucking, creaking and rumbling noises of that worn-out heart being forced into renewed activity. Like a faulty engine with cracked cylinders and no lubrication, he thought sadly: it could be made to work, but not for long.

	"Hedley!" he called sharply. When the agent joined him, he whispered, "Be quick. You've got about ten minutes."

	"What is your name?" Hedley said, softly but distinctly into the old man's ear. "Where do you come from?"

	Hedley's face, for the benefit of onlookers, showed the proper mixture of gravity and clinical detachment, but his knuckles where they gripped the chair shone white. He repeated the question, in French and German and Russian.

	The old man's head rolled from side to side, as if he was trying to avoid something. He looked puzzled and vaguely frightened. Suddenly he said, "Hargon" followed by something which sounded like "Vitlim."

	Hedley tried again: "Why are you here?"

	The answer was mumbled gibberish.

	"Delirium," Lockhart diagnosed. "Probably caused by interruption of blood-flow to the brain, or simply advanced senility."

	"Then why can't he rave in English so's we would have some idea—"

	For an instant the hard-held mask of Hedley's face slipped, and his jaw dropped open. The old man was no longer raving.

	"I mus' speak English," he mumbled slowly, "and think in English. Even among the ... the ..." His voice wavered, and his head seemed all at once too heavy for him to hold up. Quickly, Lockhart measured out another dose, then slowly replaced the syringe without using it. He tapped Hedley's arm.

	"No more questions, I'm afraid," he said gently.

	Hedley sighed and straightened up. "He didn't tell us much," he said bitterly. "Unless—" He tapped the recorder lightly. "—we can unravel the gibberish in here."

	Lockhart's mind was suddenly seething with questions, for the agent had told him practically nothing.

	"Why," he burst out, "was he sucking that capsule? Could he have known we were watching him, or did he mean to commit suicide anyway, not realising that he was dying?"

	Hedley looked up and down the cool, tree-lined avenue, at the crowds, and at the conflagration raging across the western sky. Everything— even to, an orange peel lying in the gutter—held a sharp intensity of colouring that made the scene resemble an over-vivid painting rather than mundane reality. When he spoke he seemed almost to be talking to himself.

	"He picked a good time for it," the agent said softly. "This is nice. Much better than dying in bed ..." He trailed off into silence, then turned abruptly and waved to the waiting car.

	As Hedley and the gendarme helped him lift the old man into the car, Lockhart thought of his manner of dying. His waiting, as Hedley had so uncharacteristically put it, until the nicest time of the day to do it. The thought made him uncomfortable, as if he were missing something.

	What sort of enemy agent would do a thing like that?

-

Chapter II

	The car picked up speed along the boulevard Saint-Michel and swung left into Saint-Germain. At the Pont Sully they bore left again, and holding to the Quais along the left bank of the river, sped in the general direction of Ivry. Since leaving the café nobody in the car had spoken.

	Hedley and Lockhart rode in the back, supporting the limp body of the old man between them. As the silence dragged on, his curiosity regarding the events of the evening mounted. The agent had told him practically nothing, beyond giving very detailed instructions regarding procedure, and now he was feeling increasingly uneasy about the help he had given to the other. Had that assistance been a mistake?

	The agent had spoken darkly of a threat to world peace, but for the life of him Lockhart could not see how the old man fitted into the conspiracy. For one thing, he had been too old to act effectively as a spy or saboteur. And yet, he'd been carrying a capsule which— according to Hedley—caused death in seconds. That surely was not the act of a completely innocent man.

	Why had Hedley not told him more? But he knew the answer without having to ask: classified information. Finally Lockhart could stand the silence no longer.

	"Where are you taking him?" he asked, and the angry harshness of his voice surprised him. More softly, he added, "If you're allowed to tell me, that is."

	Hedley sighed, and the seat springs creaked faintly as he shifted position. "Saint Armande's," he said. "It's a military hospital." Briefly he busied himself with pulling across the rear window curtain, then added, "They're used to this sort of thing now."

	"You mean the authorities know about this?"

	"Officially, no," Hedley answered. "But unofficially, they know and are just as scared as we are. It was the Sûreté here, while conducting a purely routine investigation, who first became suspicious of 'the grandfathers' as they called them, and we knew nothing about it until—"

	"Wait. Wait," Lockhart said hastily. The knowledge that his action had been more or less sanctioned by the French authorities relieved his mind considerably, but if anything it increased his bewilderment. That old man had been a threat to nobody. What could the authorities be afraid of? What was Hedley and his own government afraid of?

	Suddenly he realised that he had no idea of the extent of this ... threat. He had better find out before he jumped to conclusions.

	"Just how many of these old men are there?"

	"I don't know," Hedley said, and stopped. He looked at Lockhart speculatively, then visibly coming to a decision, continued, "I can tell you how many have killed themselves, however—and as we know so very little about them, I think that it would be stupid to be needlessly secretive about data which is a complete mystery even to ourselves ..."

	I don't like this, Lockhart thought suddenly. He's telling me too much. If the normally close-mouthed Hedley was giving out information, then there was a reason for it. The reason, Lockhart suspected, was probably another job.

	"... The gendarmerie, by their simple, direct methods, lost seven," Hedley was saying. "The Sûreté, with considerable more subtlety, lost five before they got scared and called in military intelligence— who to date have lost fourteen. I have lost two, and one ..." He nodded towards the figure lolling between them. "... that I don't consider to be a loss at all.

	"Some of the methods of questioning were ingenious," the agent continued. "They even tried the psychological approach—making friends and then getting them to talk about themselves. But 'the grandfathers' didn't give anything away, and when the agent doing the pumping became impatient and began asking leading questions ..." Hedley snapped his fingers. "... he had a dead man on his hands.

	"They tried knocking them out—with drugs, anaesthetic gas and even with brute force—in order to get that capsule away. No good. They invariably foiled the attempts to capture or question them." Grimly, Hedley ended, "They're conditioned, apparently, to kill themselves rather than answer questions, and with one exception, they've done just that."

-

	So nearly thirty 'grandfathers' had died rather than answer the simplest questions about themselves! And Hedley's manner implied that there were more who had not died, simply because they had not yet been questioned. But why? What tremendous secret could they possess that they ...

	Baffled, Lockhart gave up. He could make no sense of it at all, and slowly, as his sub-conscious worried vainly at the problem, puzzlement became uneasiness, and quite suddenly Lockhart knew that he was afraid. He looked quickly at Hedley.

	The agent was a big man, with large features held together by loosely-connected slabs and ridges of muscle. The face could register any emotion to order, and at the moment it showed nothing—and was working very hard to do it. Hedley also was afraid.

	More to quiet his own fears than from a desire to say anything constructive, Lockhart said, "You say they are all old men, What do you fear from them? Sabotage? Or subversion?"

	"They are not ordinary agents or subversives," the agent replied. "They have been under close surveillance, and so far they've contacted nobody suspicious, posted no letters, and from the few words they've addressed to hotel people and such, their politics are pure to the point of non-existence. They appear neither to seek or to avoid meetings with each other, and they do nothing but sit around in parks, or go to shows and concerts, or maybe for a ride on the riverboats. If it wasn't for just two things, we'd treat them as the harmless old codgers that they appear to be, and forget them."

-

	The car swung sharply left. Lockhart saw that they had left the river bank, but the locality was unfamiliar to him. He returned his attention to Hedley.

	"One," the agent continued, "we know nothing whatever about their place of origin. This despite the fact that the birth records and police files of practically every country in the world have been placed at our disposal." A decidedly sour note tinged his voice. "So far as we know, they've never even been born.

	"And two: they discourage curiosity regarding themselves in a most simple and devastatingly effective manner, they commit suicide."

	A cold hand seemed to caress the short hair at the back of his neck, and that curious blend of fear and fascination with which Lockhart used to listen to the grown-ups telling ghost stories returned to him across the years. But his fear now was not of phantoms. He was beginning to understand the deadly seriousness of the agent in this business, and the urgency with which the other had pressed him into service. Where Hedley was concerned, a war was already in its opening stages. He asked suddenly:

	"Does one have to ask which countries didn't open their records for your inspection?"

	"No," Hedley said. "You know which one already."

	Lockhart had to clench his teeth to keep from cursing aloud. What was wrong with people? Why did they do it? For the past decade the world had been in a state of uneasy peace—a peace forced on it because of the impossibility of any single nation going to war and showing a profit from it afterwards. But during the past year there had been signs that the peace was becoming less uneasy: talks, conferences and goodwill visits were occurring more frequently. And now it seemed that it had all been a sham, a cloak to hide the dagger soon to be driven into some defenceless back ...

	But, Lockhart asked himself suddenly, why was he blowing his emotional top like this? There was no proof that 'the grandfathers' were acting in the interests of any nation. They were a mystery, true, but their age alone made them incapable of doing any harm. With an abrupt reversal of feeling, Lockhart began to burn with shame at his earlier fears and suspicions. The puzzle, he thought confidently, would have a simple, innocuous solution—'the grandfathers' probably turning out to be a cult of some sort.

	Hedley would not need his help for long, and he could go back and take that post he had been offered in London. Lockhart was doing little more than waste time here, he knew, on the excuse that he was catching up on theory. Some honest work would do him good, and incidently, help him forget the scare Hedley had thrown into him with his mysterious old men.

	Not for a moment did Lockhart admit that he was adopting the defensive tactics of an ostrich.

	At the other side of the car, Hedley cleared his throat gently.

	"We've had the idea of waiting to the last minute before questioning these old men before," he said thoughtfully. "But this is the first time it has worked. Previously, the doctors helping us either waited too long, or jumped the gun before the old men were too far gone not to kill themselves. On the other hand, you seemed to know exactly when to act."

	It was impossible to tell whether the agent was understating a deserved compliment, or subtly applying the soft soap. Lockhart was uncertain which it was, but he was resigned to the fact that Hedley would want something done, and it would be very hard indeed to avoid doing it.

	"From the speech record we obtained," Hedley went on, "I hope to identify their country of origin. But further proof from other ... er, specimens may be necessary. Will you continue to assist us, Doctor? You realise, I know, how important this may be."

	Lockhart sighed. "I'll help, of course," he said.

	"Good!" Hedley said warmly. "You see, the authorities here thought up some pretty wild theories to explain the behaviour of the old men, and the reason for that peculiar poison being used—-for a reason I'll explain in a moment, it has not yet been analysed, but we do know that it greatly hastens the processes of decomposition in the body containing it. They thought that its chief purpose might be the removal or neutralisation of some hypothetical substance whose presence in the old men's systems might give their equally hypothetical game away.

	"This theorising has led to the point where the authorities have scared themselves silly. Even if their deductions are correct, I still don't think it necessary to cremate every specimen they found—" 

	"Cremate!" Lockhart burst out. "But why—" 

	He broke off as the car swerved sharply. He had a glimpse of a gatehouse, then flying gravel was rattling off the car's undersides as the brakes slid it to a halt in the driveway. Two soldiers, steel-helmeted and pointing sten guns, blocked their passage. A third approached the car.

	Cremated, Lockhart thought wildly: burned to ashes. What were the French authorities so afraid of that they had done that? He felt his earlier self-confidence melting away. Why burn them?

	The soldier put his head into the car, looked closely at the faces of Hedley's men in the front seat, then switched his attention to the back. He touched the edge of his white-painted helmet to Hedley in salute, and withdrew hurriedly. The car rolled forward again.

	"Yes," Hedley went on, disregarding the interruption. "They are convinced that this poison is supposed either to obliterate all traces of or to set off some obscure chemical reaction within the old men's bodies. In short, they think that these old people are nothing less than walking bacteriological bombs, perhaps already primed.

	"You can see, therefore, the importance of our friend here who died naturally, and the reason why I'd like you to perform an autopsy on him as quickly as possible."

	Lockhart didn't reply. He had just become aware of how small the car was. The farthest he could get from the dead man beside him was two inches.

-

Chapter III

	Lockhart was familiar with the aseptic and antiseptic techniques carried out during work in the theatre, but those precautions did not normally apply in the case of an autopsy. In the large, white-tiled dissecting room of St. Armande's hospital, however, those techniques were applied with such fantastic thoroughness that the memory of it made him shiver.

	The plastic coveralls with their sealed, transparent cowls and self-contained air supply had not handicapped him too much—at least, not until he began using the microscope. Neither had the orderlies who, similarly equipped and armed with powerful disinfectant sprays, had wandered about the room spraying everything and everybody within reach. No, the thing which had bothered him at first was the four grim figures who had stood around the table, and with their eyes glued to the Army doctor who had been assisting him.

	They had not used their sprays at all, for which fact Lockhart was very, very glad.

	He had seen something like those heavy, wide-mouthed sprays before in an old news-reel. The picture had not been clear enough to make identification positive, but Lockhart would not have taken any bets that they had not been Army issue flame-throwers.

	"If anything occurs, Doctor," Gerarde, the army man had remarked at one point, "we are all assured of medals."

	What Dr. Gerarde had meant was that if the old man's body had turned suddenly green, or begun to sprout fungus, or in some less spectacular manner indicated that the bacteriacides in use were not controlling the spread of infection, then the men with the flamethrowers would take over and the area would be very effectively sterilised.

	And it would have been the whole area, Lockhart knew, because the room had only one door, which had been barred from the outside, and no other openings.

	But strangely, as the autopsy proceeded, his earlier fear of contamination from the old man faded. He had stopped wondering at the dirty trick fate had played upon him to land him in his present mess, and he had even forgotten—for whole minutes at a time—that he could at any instant have been whiffed out of existence, all too literally in a blaze of glory. There were things about that old man's body which had forced such trivia into the background.

	If only St. Armande's had been a bigger and better equipped hospital, Lockhart thought in angry frustration. Or if he had been a half way decent pathologist maybe he could have managed something. Instead he had been forced to stop on the very verge of a discovery which would have set the entire medical profession on its collective ear.

	The old man, either alive or dead, was harmless. Even Gerarde had been finally convinced of that. But Lockhart now, as well as Hedley, desperately wanted to know who the old man had been and where he had come from—and much more important, where was the doctor whose patient he had been? He left Dr. Gerarde explaining to his assistants that this particular corpse was not to be cremated, but had to be kept for a further and more detailed examination, and headed for the main hospital building. He badly wanted to talk to Hedley.

	Hedley was no longer in the hospital, and the personnel of whom Lockhart made his enquiries seemed strangely non-co-operative, almost hostile, towards him. This was in striking contrast with his reception on arrival five hours ago, and it puzzled him. Eventually he found the driver of the car which had brought them to the hospital, an agent called Gates, and out of sympathy for the other's shorthand made his report as non-technical as possible.

	When he had finished, Gates stared thoughtfully through a window beside him which looked out on the squat, two-storey building in whose basement Lockhart had so recently been at work. A few ground floor windows were lighted, but intervening foliage made it impossible to see what was going on inside. He turned to regard Lockhart again.

	"Then you are convinced, Doctor," he said quietly, "that he was not the carrier of any conceivable type of bacteriological weapon, and we have nothing of that nature to fear?"

	"Correct," said Lockhart. He added, "The capsule, though we were unable to analyse it with the equipment available, contained a poison only, and not a germ-culture suspension."

	"And these ... er, abnormalities you spoke of?"

	"They were visually undetectable," Lockhart answered. "There were some slight differences in bone arrangement, a few other physiological short-cuts, and the complete absence of anything resembling a vermiform appendix. He was, I am convinced, a mutation of an unusually beneficial type, an example of what some geneticists think the human race may become some centuries hence.

	"But it is the treatment which the old man has undergone in his past which has aroused my curiosity ..."

	Curiosity! Was a beggar curious about a wad of bank-notes within his reach, Lockhart thought angrily, or a condemned prisoner merely curious about the last-minute arrival of his reprieve? The feeling was much, much greater than those.

	"You see," Lockhart went on, "when a man dies of old age, it can he attributed to the malfunctioning of several organs. It is a process of gradual running down, of wearing out, until the end comes relatively suddenly with the failure of one major organ—a stroke, a cardiac condition, or perhaps a cancer. The point I'm trying to stress is that although the breakdown is general, one certain organ always goes first. With this old man it was different, he, literally, went to pieces all at once."

	Lockhart took a deep breath and continued :

	"My theory is that he had been under treatment by an endocrinologist, a man who, by administering the proper hormones and antibiotics, maintained the glandular controls of his system in balance and kept it free from infection. This treatment, which to all intents and purposes halted the ageing process, had been stopped for some reason. The result of this was that the artificially maintained balance broke down, and widespread degeneration in the system followed fairly quickly. Something of this nature must, I am sure, be the explanation for the condition of the body.

	"Also in the corpse I discovered traces, very minute, of a substance which acts against cholesterol in a way that puts our hormone and vitamin B treatments in the bread poultice class. Cholesterol," Lockhart explained quickly, "is a gummy deposit on the inner walls of the blood vessels which eventually causes hardening of the arteries."

	Lockhart hesitated. He had not been able to take time to think about this properly, but there was one thing of which he was certain. Gates might not believe him, of course. But that would not matter just so long as Lockhart got another crack at one of' the grandfathers.'

	"I would very much like to meet the doctor who had been treating the old man," he resumed. "This doctor possesses the secret of longevity. Failing that I would like a chance to examine another one of these people. Do you think that could be arranged?"

	Lockhart stopped breathing, waiting.

	Gates looked faintly uncomfortable. "I suppose so," he said. "That is, if Mr. Hedley ..." He broke off suddenly, as if remembering something he should have done earlier, and reached for his wallet. Lockhart caught a glimpse of a leather strap crossing the agent's white shirt-front, and felt mildly incredulous that such a young, serious-looking and ordinary individual should be wearing a shoulder holster. Then Gates was handing him something.

	"Mr. Hedley left this for you," he said.

	It was a small sheet of paper, folded in two, and with one side covered with script which would have been small and neat had the writer not so obviously been in a hurry. It began: Doctor: I have to leave— But that was a far as Lockhart got.

	There was a dull explosion. The floor trembled briefly and the lights went out. But Lockhart barely noticed the power failure, there was plenty of light, far too much of it, streaming in through the window.

	For a crazy second he debated with himself whether to continue reading the note or look out the window, then he ran to the window ledge and leaned out. Gates was already there.

	The building which housed the dissecting room, mortuary and laboratories of St. Armande's Hospital was not simply on fire. Rather it seemed as though some highly combustible gas was being released from its foundation under fantastic pressure: each door and window and ventilator opening was a giant blow-torch jetting white fire. The incandescent glare faded quickly to the orange and yellow of a more normal conflagration as Lockhart watched, and his stunned senses began to register sound as well as sight.

	The noise of whistles blowing and feet running, of voices shouting and some of them screaming. And over all was the loud, hungry crackle of burning timber and splitting masonry. Lockhart looked quickly at his watch.

	It was three-fifteen, a.m. Not twenty minutes ago he had left Gerarde in that building, and he had almost stayed behind with the little Army doctor to discuss their findings. Had he done so ...

	Dry mouthed suddenly, Lockhart said, "The flame-throwers. There's been an accident."

	"It wasn't flame-throwers that did that," Gates said thickly. "Or thermite, or gelid petrol, or ... or anything." He cursed.

-

	Through the small trees and shrubbery dividing them from the burning building, Lockhart saw a figure running towards the blaze. But, twenty yards from the cracking, sagging wall the man was stopped by the heat. He stood motionless for several seconds, then swung about to retrace his steps. The figure took three or four paces, then halted again, and slowly began to back away from something which Lockhart could not see because of an intervening tangle of branches.

	The man did not call out, nor did he try to use the gun strapped to his hip. He merely backed towards the flaming building, making vague, pushing motions with his hands. Suddenly he clapped a hand to his cheek. The figure remained frozen in that position for perhaps two seconds, then it slid bonelessly to the ground.

	"What ...?" began Lockhart.

	"Come on!" Gates said harshly. He had also seen the incident. "We must get to that man out there." He gripped Lockhart's arm and almost dragged him from the window. "We must find out who shot him, and why, and get them, too. That is," he added, with doubt tinging the urgency of his tone, "if he was ... shot."

	As they groped their way into the dark corridor, the hospital's emergency lighting went on. Gates broke into a run.

	Lockhart, who had been making for the main entrance, felt his arm grabbed again. "This way," Gates said, indicating a small door a few yards away. "That opens onto the so-called 'park'. There's a path through it—badly overgrown—which will save us going around the long way by the drive."

	He did not have to mention that if the man out there was dying, then every second saved was important. Gates spoke only once as they were unbarring the seldom used side door. Without looking at Lockhart he muttered, "Harmless!" and gave a politely derisive snort.

-

Chapter IV

	The agent plunged into the tangle of trees, bushes, and long grass which began almost as they left the door. Lockhart, who was unfamiliar with the terrain and whose night vision left something to be desired, was groping and stumbling several yards in the rear.

	Suddenly, a voice called, "Doctor!"

	Lockhart hesitated. Probably someone wanted his help, and had been waiting at the main entrance to take him to the blaze. But he was already on his way to the fire, by a short cut. He waved acknowledgement, though he could not see anyone to wave at, and pressed on behind Gates. The sound of footsteps told him that whoever had called was following him. Lockhart grimaced to himself and increased his pace.

	The light from the fire ahead was uncertain. Several times he thought he saw Gates moving up ahead, only to find that it had been an illusion of light reflections from leaves and branches. It occurred to him how stupid it would be to lose himself at a time like this, and what Gates—and worse still, Hedley—would say about it if he did. Trusting more to luck than vision, Lockhart broke into a stumbling run.

	There were rustling noises ahead. Suddenly he saw the agent not more than six yards in front of him. Greatly relieved, Lockhart was about to call for the other to slow down when his foot caught in a root.

	Automatically he twisted sideways, trying to disengage it before he lost balance so as to avoid a broken ankle. He succeeded, but fell heavily onto his right knee, and still rolling landed in what felt like a drainage ditch. It was about three feet deep and practically overgrown with brambles. Lockhart lay, mouth open and gasping silently with the sharp pain in his knee, wondering if he had cracked the patella.

	The pain subsided slightly, and Lockhart blinked the moisture from his eyes. He grew aware that footsteps—two pairs of them—were approaching. Presumably Gates was returning to find out the reason for his lagging behind, and the man who had called him a few minutes back was just catching up. He raised his head, trying to see over the edge of the ditch. He saw Gates first.

	The agent was returning slowly along the path, an arm extended to protect his face against low branches, and muttering steadily to himself. One thing only kept Lockhart from calling out to him: shame. Lockhart was scratched and dirty and his knee hurt. The thought of being helped from a ditch by a young man who required the assistance of a doctor, and who, because of his carelessness, had instead acquired a patient made him writhe. But this was no time to think of his stupid pride, he told himself scornfully. He had to attract the agent's attention, or lie in a muddy ditch all night. He opened his mouth to speak.

	Just then the figure who had been following him moved into his field of vision.

	Lockhart was abruptly unable to make a sound: his tongue, together with the rest of his body, was in a tightening grip of fear paralysis. It was the face.

	There were eyes, a nose and a mouth, but with the possible exception of the eyes, the features seemed to be in constant, writhing motion, expanding and contracting independently of each other as if possessed of a life of their own. If the sight could be likened to anything in Lockhart's experience, it resembled a gargoyle's head seen through rippling water. From that horrible jelly of a face, words came. 

	"Doctor Lockhart?"

	Gates, who was still too far away to distinguish the face clearly, made a startled, interrogative sound. 

	Something went phtt.

	The agent slapped at something on his forehead. Lockhart saw him take a pace forward, then stumble and fall to his knees. Gates held the kneeling position for perhaps a second, then he toppled forward onto his face. His head hit a branch on the way down before thudding against a sharp-edged piece of paving, but the injuries did not bother the agent. Nothing, Lockhart knew, would ever bother the agent again.

	The thing with the jelly face, after carefully walking around the prostrate body of Gates, continued towards the blazing lab building.

-

	Lockhart's fear paralysis left him, apparently moving from the feet up. He found himself running even before his panic-stricken mind could form any idea of where he was going. Suddenly he was out on the driveway, about thirty yards from the main gate. Remembering the guards, he tried to stop, but his brain had no control over his feet at all. He passed the gatehouse at a dead run, unchallenged. The guards must have been asleep at their post. Or more likely, dead.

	Outside he slowed to a walk only because he had not the breath to continue running. He would have liked to think that a measure of calmness had returned to him, and that the reason he was walking was that he would attract less attention that way, but he knew that such was not the case. He was horribly, abysmally afraid.

	After what seemed like hours Lockhart found an all-night café. He dropped into a chair and began searching for a handkerchief to clean some of the grime from his face. In one pocket his fingers touched paper, and he remembered Hedley's note. He pulled it out, smoothed it and read it through quickly, then read it again. He began to laugh.

	Hedley had been asked to go to Berlin. The Provost Marshal of the American Sector there had received a strong protest from the Russian Commandant regarding spying. The 'spy '—who was known to have crossed from the American side to attend an orchestral concert —had thrown a scare into them because, though a very old man, he had taken some form of poison rather than answer the routine questions put by an ordinary policeman.

	In the agent's opinion the protest had been genuine, and that the 'spy' had frightened the Russian authorities as much, if not more, than similar old men had affected the French. If this were so, then the Russians could not be the culprits. But the agent was only judging by the 'feel' of the situation, and as yet had no proof either way.

	The note ended by saying that his relations with the hospital personnel had grown suddenly cool. Hedley was not sure of the reason for this, but he thought that orders must have come from very high up to drop the investigation of 'the grandfathers,' and this puzzled and worried him. He advised Lockhart to keep his eyes open, and he was leaving an agent at the hospital to take his report of the autopsy, and to see that the Doctor was made comfortable.

	Comfortable! Lockhart thought grimly. If Hedley only knew. He pushed the note into his pocket and signalled towards the café's proprietor, enquiring in his most careful French whether there was a telephone on the premises. There was, and he called a taxi to take him back to his hotel.

-

	Lockhart made himself relax, his prescription being food, a hot bath and a very easy chair. He had always considered himself as a psychologically stable person. Now he told himself firmly that he was miles from the hospital, safe in his room, and with all the lights switched on. There was nothing behind the drapes or under the bed, and the only things which could harm him were the phantoms conjured up by his own mind. And, Lockhart told himself grimly, it was high time he brought that mind under control.

	He had to look his spectre straight in the face, then try to analyse what exactly it was that he saw.

	As Lockhart went over the incident again, several things became obvious. From the short, muffled sound it had made, the weapon which had killed Gates must have been a form of air pistol—probably shooting a small pellet or needle coated with the same fast-acting poison carried by 'the grandfathers.' Also, Lockhart's name had been called twice by the killer—once just before the death of Gates. The agent, then, had been killed in the mistaken idea that he had been Lockhart. But why, leaving aside the spine-chilling nature of the assassin for the moment, did someone at the hospital want to kill him?

	Doggedly, Lockhart tried to reduce the problem to its simplest terms. Longevity: harmless old men who killed themselves rather than answer questions: an investigation, considered important enough to require assistance from another Government, suddenly dropped. Deliberately he refused to consider the grotesque aspects of the problem. They would merely confuse him, and he could come back to them after he made the relatively more normal pieces of the puzzle make sense.

	Slowly, with many gaps and blanks, a picture took form, a very unpleasant picture. Lockhart's mind shied away from it at first: he still had a few illusions, and if such a conspiracy was possible in one government, why not others? But unpleasant though it was, he knew that his theory fitted the facts, and he had to face up to that.

	Lockhart pushed himself out of his chair and began pacing the room. His scratches stung and his knee still hurt, but the walls of the room seemed suddenly to be closing in on him, and movement helped dispel the illusion. Lockhart was aware that he was no longer safe, or even free. He was in possession of knowledge which a powerful group had committed wholesale murder and arson in order to keep secret, and he might already have been traced to his hotel.

	Somewhere, Lockhart knew, there must be a doctor with the ability to prolong life, and the individuals given this priceless gift were carefully chosen. Some of them occupied high positions in at least one government, with sufficient authority to protect themselves should their secret be endangered. The incident at the hospital was proof of that, where they had ruthlessly wiped out Gerarde and his assistant together with, they thought, the only other person with the longevity knowledge, himself. And the people without knowledge—the ordinary personnel of the hospital—had merely been ordered to drop the investigation.

	But why had they allowed the investigation in the first place? Probably, Lockhart answered himself, they had believed that nothing would come of it.

	He was not quite sure where the suicidal old men fitted in, but he guessed that these had been members of the group who had fallen from grace and been left to die of old age. Something hellish had been done to their minds first, though.

	Lockhart could not even guess at the purpose of the unknown doctor in having this secret—and probably international—group of long-lived individuals in his power. To understand his reasons, a wide experience in the realms of abnormal psychology would be required. The man must be insane.

	The fact which had to be faced was that he, Lockhart, was the only living person outside the group with any knowledge of its existence. Its method of protecting itself was all too plain: Lockhart would have to be killed before he had a chance to pass on his suspicions.

	He thought of writing Hedley a letter, care of M.I.5 or the Foreign Office, or wherever it was that the agent reported to. But even on the small chance that it would reach its destination—if the hotel was under surveillance, his letters would undoubtedly be opened—the chances were that it would be destroyed as emanating from a crackpot. Fervently, Lockhart wished that Hedley was with him now. The agent would be able to handle a situation like this. He could not think of any way out at all.

-

	Dawn came eventually, then time for breakfast. He ordered it and his later meals of the day sent to the room. He was sure that if he left it, he would not return. Someone would be waiting for him downstairs. Not his executioner, but maybe just an ordinary policeman who would take him into custody on a charge trumped up by the group. Undoubtedly they had the power to enlist the aid of the unsuspecting gendarmerie in this, and when Lockhart was safely in gaol, an accident would occur.

	That night he did without supper and kept all the lights turned off, hoping that a watcher would think him gone from the room and not bother checking this with the receptionist. He locked the door and windows, and in the darkness he thought. It was the longest night of his life.

	The following morning he was vaguely surprised that his hair was not white, but he had made a decision. After breakfast he changed quickly into the clothes he had worn two nights ago. He was pale, unshaven and ragged—and, he hoped, unrecognisable. He was convinced that whoever was watching for him would not remain passive much longer, and he was determined to make a break for it.

	There was a fire escape running past his bedroom window down into an alley behind the hotel. Almost certainly the alley was watched, but he was praying for a miracle. Once down there he could mingle with the crowd in the street. He might even be able to get out of the country.

	Lockhart had the window leading to the fire escape open when there was a faint click from his bedroom door. He wheeled about to see the door handle turning slowly. Paralysed with terror he saw the door begin to swing open.

	Stupidly, and for the first time in two days, he had forgotten to lock it.

	"You have the right idea, Doctor," Hedley said, eyeing him up and down. "But that ..." He jiggled the door handle, "... was careless."

-

Chapter V

	Hedley paced slowly up and down the room: from the cream-painted door past the single bed, the dresser with its cracked, full-length mirror and the wash-stand—also cracked—to the window which looked out across the busy rue de Londres to the unlovely granite heap of the Gare Saint Lazare. The agent's face, as usual, was expressionless, but his heels dug into the worn hotel carpet a little too heavily, and his cigarette, when he remembered to draw on it, glowed bright orange and shrank visibly. Hedley was very, very angry.

	The agent had returned from Berlin to find that a fire had taken heavy toll of life and property at Saint Armande's, the investigation dropped and nobody at all willing to answer' questions about anything. 'The grandfathers,' he had been told, were harmless, merely innocent members of a cult with peculiarly strong ideals of personal liberty of mind, and an intense aversion towards any form of coercion. All relevant, police and intelligence departments had been notified of this, as had Hedley's own government, and his orders to return home were undoubtedly on the way.

	It had all been an unfortunate mistake, doubly unfortunate in that two of his men, Gates and Lockhart, had perished in the terrible fire which had occurred in his absence.

	And that, Lockhart knew, explained why he had not been tracked to his hotel. Gates' face had been badly cut up, and most of the men who could have identified Lockhart with accuracy were already dead in the fire, and so they had mistaken the agent's body for his own. One of the hospital staff casualties must have borne a close resemblance to Gates, which explained why both of them were believed dead. Lockhart's two days of mental anguish had been unnecessary.

	But Hedley had not believed the story the two senior officers at the hospital had told him, and neither, he suspected, had they. Still confused by the sudden reversal of their orders, they had been unsure of the exact powers they possessed. Otherwise, Lockhart now knew, Hedley would not have left the hospital alive.

	The agent had then gone to Lockhart's hotel to take care of the doctor's effects and notify the next of kin, and as he was on the point of entering the building, had discovered he was being followed. On finding Lockhart alive, and realising that his shadow could obtain the same information from the desk, he had whisked the doctor off to another hotel, receiving the autopsy report on the old man en route.

	That had been three days—and two more hotels—ago. Hedley believed that a moving target was safer than a stationary one.

	In sudden irritation, Lockhart tried to halt the slowly pacing agent with a question.

	"This etymologist we're expecting, is he local?"

	Hedley shook his head. "He's with the department. Decoding section." He continued his slow march.

	"What I don't understand is why we are being hunted like this," Lockhart said as the agent completed another circuit. "We're on friendly terms with them, and in the event of a war we would be allies, yet they're willing to risk international complications by killing us. Don't they know you will have reported this to your department by this time?"

	"This group apparently doesn't care about international complications," Hedley said. He stopped at the window and swung round to face Lockhart. "As I've mentioned before, there's a war brewing. Nobody wants it: repeat, nobody. But with the mess of rumours, abuse, mutual recriminations and sheer semantic gibberish being thrown about, it will certainly come."

	Grimly, Hedley went on to paint a sombre word-picture of current international events, He gave names, times and places, and told of the dark intrigues and jockeyings for power, and of the hidden, potentially explosive fermentation of minds that was being stirred up by some group bent only upon war. If events continued as at present, he could give to within a week the date on which the war would start.

-

	All at once Lockhart did not want this knowledge he was being given. It frightened him—worse, it gave him a feeling of responsibility, a feeling that he should do something about it. Still, he reassured himself, it was perhaps only gossip, Top Secret, triply-classified gossip, and it was a good thing that Lockhart didn't talk in his sleep.

	"It's an incredibly dirty and senseless business," Hedley went on. "If we only knew the purpose behind it, what it was that they hoped to gain, then maybe we could understand and do something about it. Your theory was ingenius, Doctor, but I think there is something more behind this than a small group of long-lived individuals intent on keeping their secret." He gave a baffled shake of his head. "As it is, you might as well try to understand a happy, healthy man committing suicide."

	A sudden double knock on the door made Lockhart jump, though both had been expecting it. Hedley called, "Push!"

	Three men trooped in and made themselves comfortable on his counterpane. They were Fox, Draper and Simpson, and Lockhart had come to know them well over the past two days. Fox said, "Carson and the Brain will be along in a minute," and joined his companions in silence.

	Lockhart knew Carson, too. The other person referred to must be the expert on languages, he guessed.

	"His name," said Hedley reprovingly, "is Professor Brian."

	Evidently the etymologist was sensitive about nicknames, and when the professor arrived a few minutes later, Lockhart could understand why.

	He was a tail, very thin individual in the middle forties, with big, boney hands and a grip like iron, and he had a sad, hungry expression on his face which had the look of permanence. His forehead had a slight but distinct bulge outward, and the joins between the frontal and patietal bones of his skull were plainly visible through a hairless and almost transparent scalp. Lockhart had to make an effort to keep from staring at that peculiarly shaped head, and he wondered what psychological quirk kept the Professor from wearing a wig. He was obviously a very shy man.

-

	Lockhart was beginning a surreptitious analysis of the Professor's personality—a minor vice of his when meeting a person for the first time—when Hedley's voice cut it short.

	"We want to find out as much as possible about these old men before we leave," the agent began conversationally. "Especially, their place of origin. If we knew that, maybe we could understand what exactly is happening here, and why." As he spoke he made some adjustments to the tape-recorder on the bedside table. Finished, he straightened and asked whether Carson had filled the Professor in on the background to date.

	"Yes," Carson replied. "He knows everything."

	There was a click.

	On the playback Lockhart heard his own heavy breathing again as he traced and finally extracted the capsule from the mouth of the old man on the boulevard St. Michel, and his urgent call to Hedley to make it fast. Then came the agent's voice :

	"What is your name? Where are you from?"

	The answers still sounded like 'Hargon' and 'Vitlim'.

	"Why are you here?"

	Answer: gibberish.

	Lockhart mentioned delirium, and Hedley wondered aloud why the old man couldn't rave in English. Then :

	"I mus' speak English," the old man's wavering voice returned, "and think in English. Even among the ... the ..." It faded into silence.

	"That's all," Hedley said shortly, switching off. He looked at the professor. "Do you want to hear it again."

	Professor Brian nodded. Hedley played the tape again. And again. In all he played it over seven times before the professor signalled that he had heard enough.

	Carefully avoiding Hedley's questioning stare, the professor looked at Lockhart thoughtfully.

	"Would you say," the etymologist asked quietly, "that this old man's physiological structure was normal enough for the 'truth drug' to have the usual effect?"

	"I would," said Lockhart, "with no hesitation."

	"Oh," said the Professor, his face becoming sadder and even hungrier in its expression. "Oh," he repeated.

	"But where does he come from?" Hedley asked. Impatience was making his tone downright rude.

	"Before I answer," Professor Brian said, glancing across at Lockhart, "you must understand that I've assumed—justifiably, I think—one very important fact, namely, that the truth drug administered to the old man worked. Assuming this, his 'Hargon' and 'Vitlim' replies were, so far as he was concerned, true answers to your questions, and the gibberish which followed the more complicated question "Why are you here?" was the same.

	"The fact that he did not start speaking English until after your aside to Dr. Lockhart—which went, I believe, "Why can't he rave in English?"—makes my assumption that he was answering in his own language practically a certainty."

	"But what language was it?" Hedley said impatiently.

	The Professor dropped his eyes. "I ... I don't know," he replied, his voice barely audible.

	"I see," said Hedley.

	"There are many languages and local dialects which are unfamiliar to me," the etymologist began defensively. "I can state definitely, however, that the language I've just heard does not belong to any of the technologically advanced nations, either friendly or potentially dangerous to us: those, I know."

	His voice rising in pitch, the Professor went on quickly, "It could be an artificial language, such as lo or Esperanto. But against that is the fact that a person in a 'truth-drugged' state invariably speaks his native tongue, unless told to do otherwise by his questioner. This language," the Professor said thickly, pointing suddenly at the tape-recorder and making angry, stabbing motions with a long and boney index finger, "has not got the feel of an artificial language."

	Lockhart could see that something was bothering Professor Brian, something more than the simple loss of face over not being able to identify a few gabbled words.

	From his position against the wall, Carson coughed slightly and said, "Tibet, maybe? Ancient knowledge handed down through the ages, and all that." He seemed to be half joking. "The Tibetans might have the secret of longevity ..."

	The Professor silenced him with a look.

	Hedley, who had been watching the etymologist closely for some minutes, said, "Something's biting you, Professor. What is it?"

	"Just this," the etymologist said, looking acutely uncomfortable. "In my opinion, the language did not originate on this planet." He glared at Hedley, as if daring him to laugh.

	"I'd thought of that, too," Hedley said evenly. He was not laughing.

-

	Springs creaked and twanged as the three agents lying slouched across the bed sat bolt upright. Carson seemed to be in partial shock. He stared at Hedley, his mouth opening and closing slowly, but with no sound coming out. To Lockhart, the situation had the unreal quality of a crazy, but rather funny dream. From a dry and pedantic discussion on language to this! The transition had been too sudden...

	Dazedly, Lockhart heard himself protesting to Hedley that Mars or Venus had more or less been written off so far as suitability for human life was concerned.

	"I meant, of course, an extra-Solar planet," the Professor put in.

	"But of course," Carson said. He had regained his voice, but his expression still reminded Lockhart vaguely of a goldfish suffering from concussion. Involuntarily, he laughed.

	"This is serious," Hedley said in mild reproval.

	Lockhart realised suddenly that it was. Deadly serious.

	"If these old men are extra-terrestrials," Hedley said after a thoughtful silence, "that would explain the longevity treatments, which indicates an advanced medical science, as well as their physical abnormalities—though it surprises me that they resemble us so closely. It also explains the actions of the government here, if we postulate the presence of a group within it who may have been promised longevity as a reward for secret co-operation with the aliens. This group disregarded the investigation of 'the grandfathers' because the aliens had assured them that nothing could be found out from that source, the poison carried by the old men destroying all trace of a highly-advanced medical treatment within their systems."

	Hedley shot Lockhart a brief, questioning look, seeking corroboration of this. Lockhart nodded agreement, and the agent continued :

	"But when we did begin to find out things, they panicked. A hospital building burnt with those inside it. Several people killed by means unknown, including one of my men. And the attempted murder of the Doctor here. Their action had about the subtlety of a steamroller going over a pup, and would have had the same degree of effectiveness if Dr. Lockhart had not managed to escape.

	"Then, to top it all off, they explain everything with a story a child could see through." He snorted. "A fanatical religious sect!"

	Watching Hedley's eyes, Lockhart began to feel afraid. There was a peculiar look in them, a look that the doctor had come to know during his brief U.N. work with refugee children. In them the look had been more concentrated because there had been no attempt to disguise it. It was the expression of someone who was suddenly alone, with the props of parents, friends and country pulled from beneath them.

	And Hedley had that look.

	"Their story is too transparent," the agent went on. "They're being too careless about this. Either they don't have to maintain secrecy much longer—the war blowing up will shift interest elsewhere—or ..." Hedley's voice dropped so that Lockhart almost missed the final words. "... other governments are similarly riddled with this extra-terrestrial fifth column, and a few individuals, like ourselves, can do nothing."

-

	Traffic noises drifted up from the street, sharply punctuated by the authoritive whistling of a gendarme, gradually diluting the silence of the room. Draper pushed himself from the bed and walked to the window. Looking out, he said, "These extra-terrestrials will be responsible for the war, then?"

	"They must be," Hedley said. "But what I can't understand is why. An atomic war will wreck and depopulate the planet. Surely if they have interstellar travel they must have found other planets which were uninhabited and just waiting to be colonised. Why should-they go to all this trouble?"

	Draper turned from the window to face Hedley again. He said, "What can we do?"

	He was a dark-jowled, taciturn type who treated his words like gold dust, and then only used them to get to the point of things and to stay on it. He resembled his chief in many ways, and Lockhart guessed that he rated next in seniority to Hedley.

	"Nothing," Hedley answered. "At least, not here. We'd be blocked in every move we made. But I'm convinced that these old men can be found in other cities besides Paris and Berlin. We know that they travel a lot." He shook his head irritably. "But I still can't understand how they fit into-all this. Old men!"

	Old, harmless and rather likeable men, Lockhart thought, and in their youth, great men, despite their extra-terrestrial origin. His emotions told him that they were not the type who would burn and murder and plunge a world into war. But emotions were untrustworthy at times, and they had, after all, been willing to kill themselves rather than answer questions.

	"If you're looking for leads outside this country," Carson said abruptly, "what about the couple I followed from the boulevard St. Michel?"

-

Chapter VI

	For the first time in Lockhart's recollection, he saw the agent look faintly ashamed of himself.

	"I'd forgotten those two," Hedley said. "I was inclined to agree with Lockhart here that they were simply passers-by, and with this other stuff coming up ..." He shook his head. "What did you find out, anyway?"

	"Not much," Carson said. Diffidently, he went on, "I followed them to the Hotel Lombardi on the boulevard Hausmann, which is a fairly big place about ten minutes walk from here and showed the card that the Sûreté issued to us to the hotel receptionist. She identified them as a Mr. and Miss Kelly, a brother and sister who had come on a five-day Cook's tour from Belfast and were due to return the next day.

	"Their behaviour was normal for the younger type of tourist: excursions and walks during the day, shows at night. The only oddity noticed by the receptionist was that their tastes were rather highbrow: they seemed to prefer serious choral and orchestral concerts to night-clubbing. The girl was well-liked in the hotel, especially by the older people there."

	Carson paused, as though to emphasize the words to follow, then went on, "Apparently she made friends with—or at least spoke to— as many of the older residents in the hotel as she could manage."

	Hedley grunted. "Alone, that doesn't mean much," he said, but there was a gleam of interest in his eye.

	"I followed them into the lounge," Carson continued, "but couldn't get close enough to them. The girl spoke too low to be heard, and the man seemed to be speaking English, but with a peculiar accent. I heard him plainly at times, but his words were ... were run together, sort of, so that I couldn't quite make them out. One phrase was repeated several times, something about 'Going back to baling tay' it sounded like. I felt I should have understood him, but that accent defeated me."

	"An Irish accent?" asked Professor Brian.

	"I don't think so," Carson replied. "I've travelled in Ireland a bit, and I think I know most of the accents there." He shook his head. "I'd say it was an English accent, except that I'm familiar with those, too."

	"That girl didn't look Irish," Hedley said softly. He seemed to be talking to himself.

	"And neither did her brother look like her brother," Carson added. "But that, in itself, doesn't prove anything, either ..." He trailed off into silence.

	"We must remember," Hedley said, getting to his feet, "that these two spoke to the old man, and that the girl appeared disturbed either by his answer, or his inability to answer, her question. She doesn't have the physical characteristics of the nationality she claims, and neither does her 'brother' who speaks with an accent which does not fit that nationality either. Quite possibly there is a simple and innocent explanation. But on the other hand ... Dr. Lockhart!"

	Startled by the agent's sudden change of tone, Lockhart said, "Huh?"

	"It would be better if you came with us, Doctor," Hedley said. "You are in danger here. Besides, we may come across some old men in Ireland ..."

	The agent paused awkwardly, for the first time in Lockhart's recollection visibly at a loss for words. Then decisively, he went on :

	"I'm sorry I had to get you mixed up in this, Doctor. Really sorry. But now that you are in, we might as well make this official. The job pays well, though there isn't much future in it these days. And you'll be free to go, naturally, just as soon as this affair is cleared up."

	It was several seconds before Lockhart realised that the agent was asking him to join his organisation.

	"Contrary to popular belief, the Home Office cares about its agents," Hedley added. "Usually it is impossible to help them if they get into trouble,"—he smiled wryly—" but they do care."

-

	Jumbled and out of sequence, the events of the past few days made flickering, grotesque pictures in his mind. The lab at the hospital, and the explosive violence of the fire which had consumed it: the old man on the Boul Mich who had been allowed to grow old and die, when continued treatment would have preserved him: the death of Gates, and the terrifying visage of his slayer. And somewhere in all this was the secret of longevity, and a medical science so advanced that the thought of it brought an almost physical pain, like the aching pangs of hunger.

	His findings during the autopsy had opened a door. Through it Lockhart had glimpsed things which had excited him, both as a doctor and as a man, more than anything in his previous experience. But the door had been slammed in his face.

	As he nodded in acceptance, Lockhart knew that it was not the power for good which that science would give to his profession that made him decide to join Hedley. With a feeling of self-disgust that amounted almost to hatred, he knew that his chief reason for doing so was fear. Too many things had been happening to him, and he wanted protection. Most of all, he was horribly afraid of being left alone.

	"Good!" Hedley said, getting to his feet. "We'd better leave at once, then." He began giving instructions to Fox about passports and a stop at the British Embassy to pick up any last-minute messages from home. They left the room in two groups, ten minutes apart.

	Lockhart was not yet used to the fact that he was now a secret agent. Knowing himself as he did, it seemed unfair to the other agents— they, at least, were not afraid of their own shadows. Now that they were actually doing something again, they looked almost happy.

	With the exception of Draper, they boarded an Aer Lingus 'Viscount' bound for Dublin. If a watch was being kept for them it could be concentrated at the London departure points, Hedley had reasoned, because the Paris authorities would know that he had received orders to return to England. What they did not know was that Hedley had no intention of obeying those orders—at least, not until he thought it safe to do so. He was not cutting himself off entirely from his department, however, and that was where Draper came in.

	Draper was to return to London and report everything which had occurred, unless—Hedley had laid heavy stress on his instructions at that point—there were indications that pressure similar to that which had throttled the investigation in Paris was being brought to bear on the department. If such should be the case, he was to know nothing about anything, especially regarding Hedley's plans or whereabouts. And he was not to rejoin Hedley unless he could do so in the absolute certainty that he was not being followed.

	As the 'Viscount' began to shed height rapidly on its approach to Dublin Airport, and Lockhart's ears buzzed and popped uncomfortably with the increasing pressure, Hedley outlined his immediate plans.

	"We should arrive in time to catch the six-thirty train to Belfast," he said, indicating the time-table on his knee. "Professor Brian and Dr. Lockhart can travel together, but the rest of us, being armed, had better split up. Occasionally the Customs officials search a traveller, Carson tells me, and if we were found carrying fire-arms there would be trouble. We could get out of it, but not without having to loudly advertise our presence in the country.

	"We'll join up on arrival in Belfast," Hedley added. His eyes travelled over the group, and he asked suddenly, "Is everyone fixed as regards currency?"

	Lockhart had not had time to change his francs before leaving, but he had enough sterling to manage for a while. He nodded in unison with the others. Hedley turned to watch the city that was sliding up to meet them.

-

	The Customs inspection on both sides of the border was perfunctory. Brian and Lockhart, both with visions of armed police ransacking their scanty luggage, were considerably relieved when the substance turned out to be a pair of elderly, white-capped individuals who enquired politely and almost apologetically whether they were carrying undue quantities of liquor, jewellery or cigarettes—relieved, and just a little disappointed.

	Later, as they were waiting for Hedley and the others outside the Great Northern station, Lockhart asked a question that had been bothering him for some time.

	"Suppose there are more of the old men here, what can we do? We know nothing about them. Nothing, that is, which could stop them from dying on us like the others."

	The Professor shrugged. "I don't know," he said, momentarily raising his voice above the sound of a passing bus. "But you're not quite accurate in saying that we know nothing about them. Apart from knowledge of their, as yet, inexplicable behaviour towards us, we have three small and probably useless pieces of information: two words in their language, and one fact. The words are 'Hargon' and 'Vitlim', and while their exact meaning is obscure, we do know that the first was a person who apparently came from the second, a place."

	"And the fact?" Lockhart asked impatiently. The Professor's pedantic manner of speech irritated him at times.

	"Oh," replied Brian, "That this 'Hargon' of 'Vitlim' is dead."

	Lockhart held back a sarcastic retort with an effort. It was like being able to say "Good Morning "in Chinese when all the Chinamen one knew spoke perfect English. The aliens probably knew that he was dead, but if they did not, and if this 'Hargon' turned out to be someone special ...

	The idea that had begun to take form at the back of his mind dissolved with the sudden arrival of the rest of the party. They squeezed into a taxi which deposited them, six minutes later, at their chosen hotel. It was there that Lockhart who had certain fixed ideas regarding secret agents and their work, became rudely and abruptly disillusioned.

	Lockhart, though still convinced that trailing the Kellys to Ireland was a waste of time, had not pressed his opinions too hard with Hedley —anything which caused their rapid departure from Paris at that time met with Lockhart's approval. But he had expected the agents to gather in Hedley's room for a council of war, and to plan their next moves. Instead, the agents freshened up as quickly as possible and headed for the street. Lockhart went hurriedly in search of Hedley.

	The agent must have read Lockhart's outraged feelings in his face. He laughed.

	"Don't look so shocked, Doctor," Hedley said, wriggling into a sports-shirt of a particularly deafening tartan pattern. "We're off duty. Until I find out something about the Kellys or hear from Draper, nothing more can be done. Cook's don't open until nine o'clock tomorrow morning and the earliest we can expect word from London is two-thirty in the afternoon. So get your coat, Doc, the night is still young!"

	Lockhart was still trying to equate this suddenly carefree Hedley with the grim, unsmiling agent of a few hours ago when Professor Brian joined them. They left the hotel together.

	It had grown dark. The streets were wet from a recent shower, and reflected bright, distorted images of neon-lit shop fronts and passing traffic. As they wandered aimlessly about, Hedley had comments to make on everything in sight—usually of a humorously provocative nature that had Brian or Lockhart rushing to defend the point under attack. Hedley was putting himself out to be amusing, and when they stopped at a pub for a drink, and Brian gave his impression of a drunk nuclear physicist getting tied up in his polysyllables, even Lockhart became infected with it, though he suspected that it was a ruse of Hedley's to take their minds off the alien problem. They returned to the hotel just before midnight.

	For the first time in almost a week, Lockhart had an unbroken night's sleep. Nightmareless, too.

	The next morning Hedley's role was again that of chief of a counterespionage department. His first move was to question Cook's people about the Kellys, and because Lockhart wanted some money changed, he was taken along as well. The others were told to wait where they were.

	Professor Brian discovered suddenly that he had business which he wanted to transact at Cook's too. Hedley told him firmly that three was a crowd, curiosity lolled the cat and he could just cool his heels until the Doctor and himself were finished.

	The clerk at the Continental Travel counter was tall, red-haired, aged about twenty and inclined to be talkative. His name-plate said MR. MURRAY, and mention of Miss Kelly brought an immediate and pleasurable response.

	"I know her, of course," he said, smiling. "The Kellys—she has a brother—are very good clients."

	"They travel a lot, then?" Hedley asked.

	"They do, indeed. Paris, Rome, the Tyrol, the French Alps and twice to Switzerland." He indicated a technicoloured travel brochure about thirty pages thick, and added, "They seem to be working their way through that thing."

	"Different spot every year, eh?"

	"No," said the clerk, in the tone of one not expecting to be believed. "They covered those places within the past ten weeks. It's most unusual ..." He broke off, realising perhaps that he had been on the point of breaking a confidence, and asked Hedley how he could be of assistance.

	Unusual, Lockhart thought, but not criminal. Abruptly he wondered why it was that he did not want this Miss Kelly to be mixed up in this. What difference did it make to him?

	"... I found some papers belonging to Miss Kelly in the hotel where I was staying," Hedley was saying. "When I asked about her at the desk they told me she had left for here the previous day, so I thought that I might as well bring them with me. They may be important, and I knew that you could give me her address for me to post them to her." He smiled disarmingly. "Will you look up the address for me, please?"

	Mr. Murray was on the point of opening a heavy ledger when he stopped suddenly and looked up.

	"You could leave the papers here if you like," the clerk said helpfully. "She comes in a lot, and I could give them to her."

	Lockhart could imagine Hedley swearing under his breath, but the good-natured mask never slipped for an instant. "I have them at my hotel," he said smoothly. "But you say she comes here often? Maybe I could hand them over personally?"

	"I don't know," the clerk replied. "Her passport was being fixed up for their next trip, and we expect her to pick it up today sometime. You know," he went on confidingly, "she and her brother come here a lot, but not always on business. They just stand watching the people who come in and out, occasionally asking which countries they are going to, then, on the spur of the moment sometimes, they decide to go there themselves. Their trip to Paris happened that way." He shrugged, smiling. "But she is a really nice girl ..." He stopped, apparently in embarrassment at something he had said, or was about to say. He was beginning to blush.

	Young Mr. Murray was more than somewhat smitten with the beautiful and incredibly well-travelled Miss Kelly's looks, it seemed. If he only knew what he was doing to the girl, this friendly, garrulous, stupid young man ...! The savagery of his thought surprised and shocked Lockhart.

	Again he asked himself, what did it matter to him?

	"This passport," Hedley said, and there was a hard edge in the tone of his voice, "Can I see it?"

	"No, sir," Murray said firmly. "That isn't allowed." He was beginning to look puzzled, and uneasy.

	"I want to see Mr. Griffin," Hedley said abruptly. Seeing Murray's increasing uneasiness, he had pity. "It's about a different matter," he lied. The clerk disappeared.

	To Lockhart, he said, "Griffin is the manager of this branch. His name was in the 'phone book. I may be able to bluff him into letting me see that passport without having to identify myself fully, but I'll have to work on him alone." As Murray reappeared, trailed by a small, grey-haired man, Hedley ended hastily, "Get your money changed, then wait for me outside."

	Five minutes at the Bureau de Change counter finished his business, and zipping up his wallet, Lockhart turned to leave. Suddenly he froze and began looking wildly around for Hedley.

	Miss Kelly had just come in.

-

Chapter VII

	Murray, fortunately, was involved with an elderly pair of Dutch tourists, and had not yet seen her. Hedley had gone, probably into some inner office with Griffin. The problem, therefore, was all his. But what could he do?

	Whatever he did, Lockhart knew, he would have to do it quickly. If Murray should look aside and see her, and start telling her about lost papers and men asking questions about her ... Lockhart swallowed and took a step forward.

	What would Hedley do in a case like this?

	Talk to her, the answer came. Get her outside on some pretext and away from Murray, then keep her there until help in some form arrived—except that Hedley would not require help. Only amateurs, like Lockhart, needed help. His hands felt suddenly moist, and sweat prickled the skin around his lumbar vertebrae. The long stretch of terrazzo flooring seemed to be covered six inches deep in syrup, and he was trying to wade through it.

	She still looked to be an ordinary girl of twenty or thereabouts, Lockhart thought as he approached: though it was difficult to be sure of her age because of the almost child-like expression in her face. Obviously an emotionally immature type, Lockhart thought. But then he knew that already from seeing her behaviour at that concert.

	He had gone to the concert only seven days ago, though it seemed now to be far away in time as well as space. His only problems then had been a not very pressing one of choosing between two jobs that had been offered him, and the immediate one of obtaining a good seat. He did get one of the best—and cheapest—seats in the hall, one of the few benches perched above and behind the orchestra. Lockhart was practically looking over the shoulder of every musician, observing each gesture and expression on the conductor's face and clearly seeing, when his eyes were occasionally directed away from the sweating, dedicated face of the conductor, the reactions to the music of the patrons in the plush luxury of the orchestra stalls.

	It was at the conclusion of the first piece—Mendelssohn's Hebridian Overture 'Fingal's Cave'—that he first noticed the girl later to be identified as Miss Kelly. He couldn't help noticing her. She had stood up and cheered and clapped so wildly that the applause of a highly-demonstrative French audience had seemed almost tepid by comparison. After the second work—Hardy's arrangement of the 'Londonderry Air,' strangely enough—she had not cheered, but sat huddled and forlorn with big tears rolling down her cheeks. Lockhart had been unable to take his eyes off her for long after that.

	The major work of the evening had been Beethoven's Fifth. During it Lockhart had felt that he was watching the girl bare her very soul. As movement followed movement she wept, beat her fists against the arms of her seat, covered her face with her hands and writhed in a very ecstasy of emotion. Lockhart had been in turn fascinated, sympathetic, then almost angry with the knowledge that he could never experience such intensity of feeling. After the final, crashing chords, when the conductor—wearing an expression of extreme fatigue and self-gratification reminiscent of a mother after a difficult but successful delivery —was waving the orchestra to its feet, Miss Kelly had been a flaccid, emotionally spent bundle on her seat, too overcome even to clap.

	And this was the girl that Hedley suspected of being mixed up with the aliens.

	The thought came crawling into his mind that some of the old men had been music lovers, and that one had risked crossing to the Russian sector of Berlin to attend a concert. He pushed it back hurriedly, telling himself that it had been sheer coincidence. But he was six paces from her now and he still didn't know what he was going to say or do.

	Feverishly, Lockhart wracked his brains for an opening that would hold her interest and yet not frighten her off: in vain. His bedside manner had never been good, he had not Hedley's easy charm and even at the age of thirty he still felt awkward before strangers. What was he going to say?

	Suddenly he thought of a remark the Professor had made on their arrival the previous night. It was a mad, an insane, risk if the girl was an alien. Hedley would undoubtedly blow up if he bungled it. But if she was what she appeared to be, then it could be laughed off as mistaken identity with the minimum of embarrassment on both sides.

	Lockhart stopped two feet from her. Looking into her slightly upturned face he said quietly, "Hargon is dead."

-

	The reaction was startling. Her eyes reflected a fear that was close to panic and she burst into a low, impassioned tirade. He was being-accused of something, Lockhart knew instinctively, but of what he had no idea, because the accusation was being delivered in the same alien gabble he had heard for the first time in Paris, the language which was not of Earth.

	It was a case of mistaken identity, all right, Lockhart thought as a cold, crawling sensation tightened his scalp. But who had he been mistaken for? Judging by the reaction, it must be someone in authority.

	"Speak English, you fool!" he said in an angry whisper. By sheer luck he had the jump on the girl. She was obviously afraid of him, and he meant to keep the initiative.

	Hedley, he thought, would have approved of this. But deep inside him Lockhart felt the stirrings of shame and self-disgust. The bold approach was easy when the opponent was a frightened young girl.

	"Why should we speak English?" she said quietly, but with a bitter, despairing edge in her voice. "You no longer try to hide your actions, judging by the Paris incident. Tell me, is the war so near that you can afford to be careless? And Hargon," she went on scornfully, "you killed even the great Hargon of Vetliman!"

	Lockhart's head was spinning. Apparently the girl did not approve of the things that had happened in Paris. Was the alien camp split into two opposing factions for some reason? But why was she afraid of him without actually knowing him? Did she think he was the stern impersonal type of authority, the alien equivalent of a policeman, perhaps? There was one way of finding out.

	Lockhart gestured towards the door. "Come outside," he said harshly.

	She didn't speak. Her face had gone white and if Lockhart had not grabbed her arm she would have fallen. With a shock he realised that she was horribly and desperately afraid, afraid for her life. Nobody had ever looked that way at him before, and suddenly he could no longer stomach it. He would stop this senseless bluffing and tell the truth.

	The girl was an alien, but her strong feelings about the war and the death of 'Hargon' indicated a possible sympathy for the Human side. Softening his tone to what he hoped was one of reassurance, Lockhart began, "I won't hurt you. In fact, I'd like to help you if possible. I do not approve of the war, either, and I want to talk to you. Could we go somewhere less public ...?"

	"You are ... alone?"

	The girl's expression was less frightened, but a wariness, and a look almost of hope had come into her eyes. Suddenly, shockingly, she laughed.

	"Alone," she repeated scornfully. "Alone, and without a Cloak. But he still wants to make a killing and gain promotion by an unarmed capture." She laughed again. "So he pretends to be on my side, pretends that he is opposed to the war, and that this, out of all the planets in the Galaxy, is the one world which must not be harmed. And he will expect me to believe him.

	"The people, yes," she added vehemently. "But not the world. That is too valuable."

	"You don't understand," Lockhart began. "I am not—"

	He broke off as her arm—which he was still gripping—tensed and she looked aside quickly. He caught the covert glance and half turned towards the door.

	Her brother had arrived.

	Lockhart could not believe that his appearance could mean danger. The get-up was too fantastic. Fawn sports coat, plum-coloured trousers, a green and gold cravat with a jewelled stick-pin and, carried negligently in the left hand, a silver-topped cane. As he stood in the entrance, dabbing daintily with a lace handkerchief at some imaginary perspiration on his pallid brow, a second complication occurred.

	Professor Brian also arrived.

-

	Kelly saw his sister in the same instant that the Professor saw Lockhart, but Kelly moved first. He came towards them at a dead run, and there was nothing at all effeminate about the look on his face.

	Instinctively, Lockhart tightened his grip on the girl's arm. He felt her try to pull free, then heard her direct a few low, urgent syllables towards her rapidly approaching brother. He found his tongue again.

	"Wait!" Lockhart said hastily. "I've got to talk to you. I'm a ... a native—"

	"Doctor!" Brian called suddenly, "Look out!"

	When Kelly had shown no sign of going for a weapon—alien or otherwise—Lockhart had returned his attention to the girl. Her brother was small and slight, and no match for Lockhart physically. But he brought it back in time to see the innocent, silver-topped cane come apart to reveal a two-foot sliver of steel attached to the ornamental handle. The cane which had acted as a scabbard for the swordstick cracked viciously against Lockhart's wrist. Simultaneously, the blade flicked upwards and drove towards his throat.

	Two things saved his life: his frantic attempt to twist aside and fend off the blade with his arm, and the two quickly spoken syllables from the girl which caused her brother to hesitate in mid-lunge. Lockhart's upflung arm deflected the blade from his throat, but there was a tearing, burning sensation in his right shoulder before he saw it withdrawn for a second—and lethal—attempt.

	Evasive action was impossible to him: he could not take his eyes off that thin, wicked blade with the red streaks on its tip. Shock kept the pain from registering fully, and his only thought was a bemused observation that aliens were supposed to have ray-guns and not sword-sticks. He was still gazing hypnotically at the point of the weapon when it dawned on him that it was not coming any nearer. Two big, boney hands were restraining the arm which held it, and Lockhart recognised the Professor's hands even before the other's strained and sweating face swam into his field of vision.

	The struggle was brief, bitter and noisy. Kelly was doing a lot of swearing. Lockhart knew because some of it was in a peculiar type of English. Still with a strangely detached feeling about the whole thing, Lockhart saw the swordstick fall to the floor, and the girl close in on the struggling pair. He saw her fists thud into the Professor's back in a double kidney punch, then Brian was hunched forward and gasping painfully, and Kelly and his sister were gone.

	Hedley appeared a few seconds later and bustled them outside, loudly proclaiming—for the benefit of the crowd—that they were going in search of a policeman. Back at the hotel, Lockhart dressed the punctured shoulder with the help of Carson. It was not a serious wound, and he hurried back to Hedley's room as quickly as possible to make his report.

	"... But didn't you try to follow them?" the agent was saying as Lockhart entered. His voice was scathing.

	"She punched me in the kidneys," the Professor replied hotly. He added, "That's dangerous in a man of my age."

	"Oh, skip it," Hedley said, noticing Lockhart. Before listening to his account of the conversation with the girl he asked curtly about the wound, and when Lockhart had finished the agent said shortly, "You did very well, Doctor."

	He was quiet then, for a long time.

	"Are you sure of your facts?" he finally said, addressing the Professor. "You positively identified the language spoken by the man?"

	"He only spoke that particular form of English when he was—er—excited," Professor Brian answered. "The rest was unintelligible, but I heard enough to be sure. The swordstick, his dress, and his seeming effeminacy make it conclusive."

	Turning to Lockhart, Hedley said drily, "You'll be glad to know that the Professor has tracked down our Mr. Kelly." His mouth quirked downwards as if fighting the urge to burst into laughter, or maybe profanity. "He is, or was, a native of England during the middle 1700's. What is more, he resided there recently, because the Professor assures me that his language shows no dilution by the colloquialisms of later periods, as would be the case if he had lived through those years."

	Abruptly Hedley pushed himself from his chair and began pacing the room. He halted suddenly, and clenched his big fist over a brass knob on his bedstead. "What can we do? Where can we start?" he said dully. "Spacetravel was bad, but now we have time-travel to deal with as well.

	"Did those old men come from the stars, or from our own future, or both? And what part do they play in this? We now have proof that there are extra-terrestrial beings at present on Earth, but now we have to discover when as well as where they've come from."

	The brass knob came away suddenly in his hand. Hedley gazed at it curiously for a moment. Absent-mindedly he added, "And, of course, why they're here."

-

Chapter VIII

	There seemed to be three distinct groups of aliens now. First came the old men, harmless and fanatically uncommunicative, whose behaviour had first aroused the department's suspicions. There was the group who had been responsible for the St. Armande's fire, and which almost certainly contained a large number of Earthmen. A third group—possibly of only a few individuals—were opposed to the war-breeding activities of the second group, and they disapproved of their treatment of the old men, who were group One. And just to tangle the problem further, there was a time-travelling Earthman from two hundred years in the past.

	The problem was giving Lockhart a splitting headache to add to the trouble his shoulder was giving him. The wound was superficial—a small, neat puncture which had gone through the deltoid muscle without touching the bone, and made by an instrument of razor sharpness and nearly aseptically clean. Penicillin dressings and a firm bandage would have it as good as new in a week, but the constant jogging and swaying motion of their speeding car was not helping towards a pain-free recovery. The eye which Lockhart turned on the scenic grandeur all around him was, as a result of this, decidedly jaundiced.

	Hugging the restless edge of the sea, the Antrim Coast Road wound beneath soaring limestone cliffs and around grey, foam-flecked headlands, and tiny bays where the sea was like blue glass, the sand glared yellow and the crying sea-birds were straight from a Vernon Ward painting. It passed through a small village, where thatched cottages and Neon-trimmed shop-fronts glared at each other across its tarmac no-man's land, and then on. 

	Their objective was Portballintrae.

	Hedley had intended going to Portballintrae since the moment he found out "Miss Kelly's "address from Cook's; she lived there. But when he had picked up the letter from Draper in London at the Poste Restante- the visit became a five-star crash priority.

	Draper had reported the department free of alien influence—its organisational tree was such an impenetrable tangle that it was impossible for any small group to gain effective control of it. He had added that the department approved of Hedley's recent actions, and that his orders to return had been an attempt by them to extricate him from what looked to be a very sticky situation. That and to inform him of the latest developments in the investigation. This information, in the form of a photograph, a dossier, and a copy of an FBI field office report, had been enclosed for his attention.

	The copy report—stamped MOST SECRET in red—concerned three old men who had killed themselves while with a party touring Yellowstone National Park. The circumstances, not to mention the poison used, had been of a very disquieting nature, though the old men themselves had seemed harmless. By backtracking their movements prior to the triple suicide—no easy job this, despite the resources of the Bureau—they had been traced to a hotel in a small Irish coastal town, where the trail had come to a dead end. An Agent who had been holidaying in Ireland—see attached photograph and dossier—was at present in residence at this hotel.

	The FBI man was called Keeler. He was staying in a place called "The Bay Hotel," Portballintrae ...

	"Navigator to Pilot," Fox sing-songed to Hedley behind the wheel. "We're here."

	Lockhart's mind returned to present time with a rush as the car slowed, then turned into a private parking area and stopped. It was the biggest car that they had been able to obtain at short notice—it held six people uncomfortably. It was a relief to get out of the thing.

-

	The Bay Hotel was a sprawling, three-storey building set on the main road and overlooking the small harbour of Portballintrae, and it boasted a large private lawn and an enclosed car-park. It looked prosperous, in a quiet sort of way, and completely ordinary. But, Lockhart reminded himself, Miss Kelly lived somewhere nearby, and this hotel was the earliest known place of origin of three old men whose deaths had the United States Federal authorities in a condition—judging by that report—of extreme anxiety. Appearances were deceptive.

	There was nothing extraordinary about the reception clerk either. When Hedley hinted that his party might stay for a few days if they liked the place- Lockhart thought that his manner grew perceptibly less warm, but it could very well have been his imagination. The porter who showed them to their rooms was similarly unremarkable. If the hotel was a cloak for any kind of alien activity, then it was hiding it in the best possible way—by being outwardly and inwardly just an ordinary hotel.

	Lockhart, his mind only on the thought of supper—or whatever meal the hotel could provide at eight-thirty in the evening—was leaving his room when the purpose of their coming here was abruptly brought back to him.

	He saw the time-traveller.

	It was only a glimpse through an opening door some ten yards along the corridor, but identification was positive. And the speed with which the door closed again told Lockhart that the other had seen him. Lockhart flung open the door of the room belonging to Hedley and the Professor, yelled "Come on!" and broke into a run down the corridor.

	He burst through the door as the time-traveller was trying to lock it, sending the slight figure stumbling back into the room. Lockhart followed him up, swinging a vicious right. It connected high on the other's cheek, spinning him half around and throwing him against a wardrobe. He moaned faintly and slid to his knees, his hand groping towards the breast pocket of his jacket. Lockhart grabbed at the wrist, put his knee behind the elbow joint and pulled the arm back until a shiny, metallic something thudded onto the carpet.

	It resembled a revolver, but more streamlined, and the barrel was solid except for a tiny pin-hole at the business end. Probably it was twin to the weapon which had gone phtt and shot a poisoned needle into Gates in Paris. Lockhart hit him again.

	"Doctor," Hedley said mildly from the doorway, "we want him to be able to talk. Don't make work for yourself."

	Lockhart straightened up. He had been mad for the last few minutes, homicidally insane. He wasn't the type who charged blindly into bedrooms and beat their opponents into insensibility—especially when he could very easily have been killed doing it. He looked at the weapon on the floor and shuddered. But he had wanted to get his hands on this murderous little so-and-so since that morning in Cook's. The shameful memory of how he had let himself be wounded and then just stood watching while the Professor kept him from being killed had not helped his anger, and the jogging his shoulder had taken in the car had him on the point of picking a quarrel with the Professor several times. Lockhart had been a tightly-wound spring, and at sight of the time-travelling Mr. Kelly he had gone snap! 

	But he was not proud of himself over it.

	"I hope you haven't broken his jaw," Hedley said worriedly.

	Lockhart bent down again. He ran exploring fingers along the lower jaw- glanced inside the mouth at the even rows of teeth and said shortly, "He's all right. He'll come round in a few minutes."

	His shoulder was throbbing painfully—due, no doubt, to his recent violent exercise. It got worse as he lifted the unconscious figure onto the bed. But some masochistic urge, some obscure need to punish himself for his brief lapse into savagery kept him from asking one of the others to do it.

	Everybody was in the room now, gazing curiously at the man on the bed. Hedley gave curt, low-voiced orders, and Simpson left to keep watch in the corridor while Fox went to seek out the FBI man, Keeler. The agent gave Lockhart a peculiar look and said, "Perhaps you'd better go to the other side of the bed, Doctor. There's a possibility that he may side with us, but if he wakes up and sees you ..." He left the sentence hanging, shook his head, and muttered, "Caveman Lockhart." Both he and the Professor moved nearer to the bed.

	It was a most unusual interrogation, and conducted with such extreme and flowery courtesy that the initial introductions and exchanges of compliments took all of fifteen minutes. He was the Honorable Cedric—plus six or seven other christian names—Bowen-Walsmley, and he was obviously pleased that the Professor was able to converse with him in his own brand of English. Some of the conversation made Lockhart smile, especially when Cedric referred to Hedley as a Bow Street Runner. But when he began to describe the work of something called the "Agency "on Earth, there was nothing funny about it at all.

	Apparently the Earth-human employees of this Agency were ignorant of its true plans. There were several hundreds of them occupying positions of importance in most of the world's governments, but they worked only for the promise of continual rejuvenation—it had been demonstrated several times on the older employees—and the power and riches which longevity would bring. Usually it was very dirty work indeed. The coming war was a sample.

	"But why?" Hedley burst out suddenly. "Why are they doing it to us?"

	To understand that, Cedric told him haltingly, he would have to know of the peculiar nature of the civilisation which was spread over some two hundred-odd inhabited planets of their Galaxy. It was, Lockhart gathered, a civilisation that held such a horror of physical pain that a Galactic citizen would prefer to die painlessly rather than suffer a cut finger. That was an exaggeration, but not a big one. To him life was not worth going through suffering to maintain. It was a civilisation that was going steadily mad- with boredom.

	And to understand that a knowledge of the method by which certain types of suns gave birth to planets was necessary. Cedric did not even try to describe this method—it was impossible, Lockhart guessed, in Olde English. He simply described the planets so formed.

	There was a stage in the evolution of a certain type of sun when it produced planets, one of which was invariably suited to human life. But there was a dreary sameness about the planets thus produced. They lacked the axial tilt which gives seasonal changes, and their cooling was so gradual that the mountain chains which did form were neither spectacular nor capable of affecting their weather to any extent. They were temperate in climate, and because there had been no geological catastrophes to force evolutionary adaptation, their flora, fauna and general aspect was achingly dull and monotonous.

	Yet over the centuries the inhabitants of these planets had developed civilisation, and a science which enabled them to travel between the stars. But they were unstable and emotionally starved cultures for the most part, and when interstellar exploration brought home the bitter fact that all the inhabited planets were carbon copies of the home world, that the far-off fields were as drab and uninspiring as those beneath their feet, the cultures in question took a decidedly psychotic turn.

-

	Cedric did not use phrases like "Evolutionary adaptation "or "geological catastrophe." Lockhart was forced to condense the other's archaic expressions into sentences which he could understand himself.

	Interstellar travel had accomplished one thing, however, and that was a galaxy-wide Federation of human-inhabited planets. There were very few non-human intelligent races. And not all the citizens of this Federation were unstable. There were the administrators—wise and intensely altruistic men of varying capabilities whose unremitting efforts kept the loosely-bound Federation from tearing itself apart—and the higher officers of the Agency who were stable but very definitely not sane.

	The proof of then insanity was in the Agency's plans for the future of Earth.

	The planet Earth was unique, a world of beauty and contrasts and change that made it the tourist's paradise of the Galaxy. Its only drawback was the fact that it was inhabited, and previous attempts by the Agency to keep these inhabitants from developing a high-level civilisation of their own had only served to accelerate the growth of the physical sciences. This forced the Agency to limit the number of tourists it transported to Earth, because an increase in the speed of communication meant greater danger of its existence being discovered. Such a state of affairs was intolerable, so the Agency had decided that the present technological culture on Earth would have to be wiped out together with enough of its population to ensure that it could never rise again. The method to be used was war, a planet-wide atomic war.

	"The old men are tourists, then," Hedley said grimly, "conditioned to kill themselves rather than give away the Agency. But why are they all old men?"

	Lockhart cut in just as Cedric was beginning to reply. He felt that Hedley and the Professor were being too gullible; it seemed to be an understood thing that this transplanted dandy from the Eighteenth Century was on their side, and that he was telling the truth. Cedric could instead be stalling for time until help in some form arrived. He said, "What I want to know is how time-travel comes into this. And also, how do you know so much about the secret aims of this Agency?"

	Cedric, who had raised himself to a sitting position on the edge of the bed by this time, twisted around in surprise. He had not been aware of a fourth party in the room. When he saw Lockhart his teeth came together with a click. A slender white hand went up to the raw patch on his cheek and his features stiffened with the tension of anger. He got slowly to his feet, turned to face Lockhart, then made a sweeping and graceful bow from the waist. He smiled then, but only with his mouth.

	Suddenly the Professor, his face white and actually beaded with sweat, was between them.

	"You would have to shoot off your big mouth!" he whispered fiercely. "Dammit, why couldn't you ..." He broke off, grimaced and said softly, but with great emphasis, "Be careful what you say now. Very careful. Unless you've been holding out on us and are an expert swordsman."

-

Chapter IX

	It was the Professor, talking with speed and great eloquence, who got him out of it. Lockhart realised suddenly that where Hedley was concerned, Cedric might now be the more valuable man of the two—though he doubted if the agent would allow the thing to reach the pistols-for-two-coffee-for-one stage. At least, he hoped not.

	The way Professor Brian put it' it had all been a most deplorable misunderstanding. In ignorance, they had acted toward each other as enemies, but now they were allies. They should also be friends. The good Doctor's questions, the Professor assured Cedric, had not been meant as a slight upon his veracity, their wording had merely been ill-chosen because of Lockhart's understandable curiosity. Blood had, after all, been spilled on both sides, and the Professor was sure that no further satisfaction would be required from either gentleman.

	Lockhart, thinking of his throbbing shoulder and measuring it against the quarter inch nick which his signet ring had made in Cedric's cheek, decided that he had the biggest grievance, but he didn't bring up the point. Instead he gave an awkward imitation of Cedric's grandiloquent bow and flourish and forced his mouth into what he hoped was a smile.

	Cedric returned the bow, his smile also a trifle forced. Technically, they were friends, but the atmosphere was still rather strained in the room. Lockhart was glad when he saw Hedley motioning him to the door.

	"What does he mean 'allies'?" Lockhart burst out when they were in the corridor. "You're taking everything he says for gospel. Why, he hasn't even mentioned the girl. And he still hasn't answered my questions—"

	"Doctor," Hedley interrupted gently, "he hasn't had time to answer half the questions I want to ask him yet. Personally, I believe him. His story so far is self-consistent and fits the facts as we know them. However, I make a point of not trusting anyone's feelings in cases like this- not even my own, that is why I want you to question the Kelly girl right away. We'll be able to check his story that way."

	"But ..." Lockhart began. Things were happening too fast for him. And the last time he had met the girl ...

	"Fox will go with you, just in case there's another bodyguard," the agent went on. "But you had better handle the questioning, it would take too long to bring Fox up to date. Don't worry, you'll make out all right, Doctor." He turned and spoke to Simpson who was a few yards further down the corridor. "Has Fox come back yet?"

	Simpson grinned broadly, as if at some secret joke. "He's just gone into his room."

-

	Fox was standing in the middle of his room. There was a wide, dark stain on the breast of his well-fitting fawn suit and he was dabbing at his right ear with a towel. He looked annoyed.

	Hedley indicated the stain. "How— "he began.

	"Routine, just routine," Fox mimicked savagely. "I got shot with a ray-gun. Dammit, why didn't they tell us the whole family was here ...?"

	"What family?" Hedley said impatiently.

	"Keeler's. His wife and kid are with him," Fox answered, glowering. "That kid! If you imagine a little brat who stands in front of a radio, yelling the answers before the panel can deal with them—he's an ex-quiz-kid, apparently—while watering everybody in sight with that two-hundred shot space-blaster of his ... "

	"They did say he was holidaying. But that's unimportant. Does he know anything that we don't?"

	Fox shook his head. The FBI man had good descriptions of the three Yellowstone suicides. Cautious questioning of one of the maids had elicited the fact that they had arrived at the Bay Hotel suddenly about ten months ago, but she had insisted that the men could not be as old as Keeler described them. Keeler had then shown her the photograph his Chief had sent, head and shoulder shots of the men taken after their death, and touched up a bit. She was still sure that they were the same men, she had told him, but the photographs made them look very much older.

	The reception clerk and manager of the hotel could not tell him where the three had come from previous to their arrival there. Since asking those questions, certain small but irritating incidents had occurred which, had he been an ordinary guest, would have caused him to leave the hotel.

	"... And just one other thing," Fox concluded. "Keeler says that there is a funny-queer character who seems to work here who answers the description of our Mr. Kelly—takes snuff and is a peculiar dresser among other things—and he sometimes meets a girl in the village who could be the Miss Kelly that we're looking for. That's about all."

	Lockhart only half heard Fox's closing sentences. He was wondering about the sudden ageing of those three men. What did it mean? Longevity; accelerated ageing. He gave up.

	Hedley's mind must have been working along the same lines. He said suddenly, "Doctor! Go see Miss Kelly, you know the address. Tell Fox what's been happening on the way." To Fox he said, "I'll see Keeler later. Go with the Doc. Move!"

	He turned quickly and re-entered Cedric's bedroom; there were a lot more questions needing answers now.

	On the way out they took a wrong turning and found themselves in a big, heavily-carpeted lounge. There was a plentiful scattering of easy chairs, most of which were occupied. As his eyes travelled round the room Lockhart was reminded outrageously of a cartoon he had seen where a member of a select London club had passed away behind his copy of The Times, without anyone noticing the fact for weeks.

	The occupants were all old men. Some were reading papers, but mainly they just sat staring, heavy-eyed with the fatigue of extreme old age, at the sunset which poured a flood of amber light through the big french windows. Suddenly Lockhart remembered that other sunset in Paris, and the old, old man who had died watching it. Involuntarily he shivered as he turned about.

	They noticed a little plaque marked "Adult's Lounge "on the door as they left. Fox, in an awed whisper, said, "Just how adult can you get!"

	The girl was living in a place called Daly's Guest House, a small hotel set on the sea-front. Its manageress told Lockhart that she thought that Miss Kelly was in, and would he mind waiting in the lounge. Lockhart did not mind at all; he hadn't an idea of how to conduct the coming interview and the prospect was making him feel shaky about the knees. A chance to sit down was just what he needed.

	This lounge also looked out across the bay. The sunset was dying a glorious death, and far out to sea the smoke of a coastal collier scrawled a black crayon line across the horizon, accentuating rather than spoiling its beauty. Just across the road a shadowy figure was leaning against the sea-wall, smoking. Fox was on station. But Lockhart knew somehow that he would not be needing help this time.

	It was growing dark in the room. Lockhart had just switched on a table-lamp when the girl arrived.

	Looking at her Lockhart now wondered if she really was a girl in her late twenties or, distasteful as the thought was, did she possess a rejuvenated body which had lived through several normal life-times. He could not decide. She seemed surprised to see him, but not afraid, and he saw her eyes go to the small tear in the shoulder of his jacket. She spoke first.

	"I'm glad Cedric did not kill you this morning," she began, and stopped. There was a brief pause, then she went on hurriedly, "The fact that there are Earth-humans with knowledge of the Agency's crimes on this planet means that evidence of inhuman practice can be brought against them, and makes possible a plan I have which will destroy them. It should also stop the coming war, providing we can act quickly—-"

	"Just a minute," Lockhart said sharply. "Before we talk about plans, or anything else likely to add to the general confusion, there are some questions I want answered. And," he added suspiciously, "it seems to me that if you had a plan to stop this war, you would have told us before now."

	"You wouldn't have believed me. Admit it. You had to find out a little about the conspiracy first."

	That was probably true, Lockhart thought to himself. But he was not going to be side-tracked. He said, "Who are you, and why are you here?"

	"I am an agent of the Galactic Federation," she replied, her back stiffening perceptibly, "with instructions from Harlnida to obtain evidence that the Agency is guilty of illegal contact, exploitation and inhuman practices ..."

	Lockhart was thinking of the girl at the concert in Paris who had shown the emotional reactions of a hyper-sensitive adolescent. She probably swooned in front of crooners, too. His thoughts must have shown on his face, because an angry edge came into her voice.

	"... Widespread inhuman practices," she went on, "because Galactic citizens as well as Earth-humans are being affected."

	"You'll have to explain," Lockhart said firmly.

	She did explain. Much of it was a repetition of what he had already learned from Cedric, but told from the Galactic viewpoint. The rest of it ...

	The Federation was not entirely composed of neurotics—and the richer neurotics who could afford to travel. There were strong-minded beings also, men of sensitivity and imagination who usually attained to the higher administrative positions in the government, and spent their long lives in trying to bring new life and purpose to that mighty but decaying civilisation. But this sensitivity was also their weakness, for it made them particularly susceptible to the attractions of Earth. Over the years the Agency had been gradually stripping the Galaxy of its more mature and stable minds, luring them to Earth, and oblivion. It was a one-way trip, of course.

	Lockhart said, "Luring them, how?"

	With music and pictures, the girl explained. Music that ripped and bludgeoned at the emotions until the hearer all too often passed from ecstasy into permanent insanity, and pictures which were nothing less than a glimpse of Heaven. The Agency offered —for a fantastically high price—to transport tourists to the planets where these music tapes and pictures originated. The location of Earth was a closely-guarded secret, and the trip was strictly a one-way affair, but this did not matter. Nobody in their right mind would refuse a one-way trip to Heaven.

	But when these tourists—they had to be among the richest and most powerful men in the Galaxy to afford it—arrived they soon discovered that their enjoyment would be short-lived. The Agency would not allow them to continue with longevity treatments, and it forced them to undergo a process of mental conditioning which caused them to kill themselves rather than give the smallest hint of their identity to an Earth-human. The Agency had become something more than a profitable transport business. It was choosing the Earth tourists with great care and for a purpose.

	When the Galactic administration was sufficiently weakened, the Agency would take control of the Federation.

	But recently the Agency had been in danger of losing this ultra-profitable tourist trap, the girl went on. And its long-term plan had been jeopardised at the same time. Attempts to keep Earth simple and unspoiled had back-fired. Instead of keeping the natives backward, divided among themselves and almost constantly at war, the Agency's meddling had started them thinking in terms of world government, as well as causing their technology to leap ahead until it equalled that possessed by many of the Federation worlds.

	The coming war would solve this problem, though it would mean that there would be no further musical compositions coming from Earth. There would be no Earth-people.

	Lockhart said, "There's one more question," and wet his lips nervously. It wasn't that he disbelieved her now, his trouble was that his mind baulked at accepting such a load of data all at once. "Time-travel," he jerked out. "What about Cedric?"

	The girl looked faintly impatient. "Your Earth mathematicians know of the time-contraction effects encountered in a body travelling at light-speed," she replied. "Cedric was thrown from his horse when it was frightened by the landing of a Grosni ship. It brought him aboard while he was unconscious, but unaware of the extent of his injuries and feeling responsible for them, it took him to the nearest Human inhabited planet to receive treatment. Cedric regained complete consciousness only after a few weeks had passed, and had to be given extensive hypno-therapy to make his surroundings liveable for him. It was this prior conditioning which allowed him to shake off the later Agency processing given when they put him in joint charge of the base here in Portballintrae.

	"The Grosni—whose physiology does not allow them to travel in hyperspace—had handed him over to the Agency for transportation back to Earth. But the distance from Earth to the planet where Cedric was landed was great, and though only a few months subjective time had elapsed for him, many years had gone by on Earth. When they returned him he was confused and frightened by the time-jump. They offered him what would have been a harmless job, if the Grosni conditioning had not counteracted their own—which was meant, of course, to make his work for the Agency appear harmless even to himself."

	So the time-travel question worrying everybody had turned out to be simply a by-product of inefficient space-travel. That was a relief, anyway. But something else was bothering Lockhart now. The girl had spoken of the Agency trying to keep the Earth people at war among themselves. He said:

	"Then the Agency is responsible for all our wars?"

	"Certainly not," the girl replied, scornfully. "You are not as civilised as all that. World War Two, yes—you will know of national leaders, no doubt, who had delusions of being God, of living forever? But the first World War was all your own, though I think ..." her tone softened a little, "... that it would have been the last if you had been left alone."

	All at once Lockhart felt very small and ashamed of himself. To this girl, citizen of a galactic civilisation that stretched back for countless thousands of years, he must appear little more than a savage. She looked young, but with the advanced medical science which must be part of her culture, she could very well be hundreds of years old.

	And Lockhart had almost laughed when she told him that she was a Galactic Agent. 

	"This plan I spoke of ... "began Miss Kelly.

-

Chapter X

	Hedley was sitting on a linen-chest with Keeler's portable typewriter balanced on his knees, transposing the notes he had taken earlier. It was shortly after midday, and the agent had spent the greater part of the morning listening to Miss Kelly's plan for saving the world. Now he was waiting for Fox—who had taken the car to meet the Portrush train—to return with Draper. When everyone was present, Hedley would assign duties.

	Lockhart, who had heard the plan from Miss Kelly the previous night, did not feel very enthusiastic about it. A group of repertory actors, with their ability to memorise lines quickly, would be better qualified to carry it out than Hedley's group, he thought. Suddenly the agent looked across at him, and spoke.

	"Out of deference to the FBI," he said drily, "I think I'll include the Bill of Rights and the Gettysburg Address." His fingers tapped busily for a few seconds, then stopped as a double knock sounded on the door.

	Hedley put the machine aside as Fox and Draper came in. Quickly he introduced Draper to the FBI man. Keeler was a big, lanky individual, deeply tanned, and with the wide-set eyes and facial bone formation that suggested Indian blood. The FBI man had time only for a brief shake hands before Hedley was calling for quiet and attention. The briefing was about to begin.

	"Fox has brought Draper up to date on the way here," Hedley began briskly, "so we'll get on with it.

	"You must understand that the best way to stop the coming war quickly is by acting directly against the Agency. It is the only way, in fact. We can do this, Miss Kelly assures me, by furnishing proof of the Agency's dirty work to the Galactic Court. She also suggests that we show evidence to prove that the Earth is a civilised planet which is worth saving. That is why I want to include excerpts from the works of various philosophers, musicians, statesmen and so on.

	"But this evidence," he went on, "must be read aloud before a device which both records the words and certifies that the man speaking them is telling the truth. You see, documentary evidence can be forged, so the Court doesn't accept it. The proof which we place before it must, Miss Kelly states, be—er—' keyed' to a living person."

	As Hedley paused, Lockhart saw the attentive expressions around the room change slowly to dazed incredulity. They had been expecting something drastic, but this ...!

	"We haven't much time," the agent continued quickly, "so I suggest we start at once. The library in Portrush will supply the data we need. Draper and myself will work on past and present crimes of the Agency, Simpson and Fox will begin memorising ..."

	"Wait a minute," Fox said, his voice squeaking in disbelief. "Does this mean that all we have to do is read history and stuff into this ... this gadget?"

	"This 'gadget'," Hedley replied quietly, "is built into the Agency ship which will arrive two days from now. The plan calls for us boarding it to say our piece, so the job won't be all that easy."

	"Oh," said Fox. Around the room there was a sudden perking up of interest.

	"To further complicate matters, the ship will be totally invisible to normal vision. So will the 'tourists' landing from it. But this is to our advantage rather than otherwise, as I'll explain later. Right now we have some hard stewing to do. You'll work a lot harder than you ever did in school, believe me.

	"The Professor and Keeler here will not have to memorise anything, as they will not be in the boarding party. But they can help in laying out assignments and so on." Hedley paused, smiling faintly. The 'Why not's?' of the two men came as a perfect duet.

	"Because," he went on, "Keeler has a family and the Professor is too old. That," he said hastily as the etymologist showed signs of imminent eruption, "is Miss Kelly's decision, not mine. Myself, I'd say it was very thoughtful of her."

	The Professor subsided into his chair, only slightly mollified. "She will be supervising our—er—studies, of course?" His face wore a "Just you wait" expression. Too old, indeed!

	"Well, no," Hedley replied uncomfortably. "She will be out sightseeing.

	"With the Doctor," he added quickly.

-

	This was the part which Lockhart had been dreading all morning. Maybe it was guilty conscience bothering him—the others would be sweating it out night and day until the ship arrived, while he had nothing to do but show off the countryside to a girl—but he felt the need to defend himself, and her. He said:

	"You've all been told of the effect this planet has on Galactic citizens. To them Earth is Heaven. Giving her a last look around is the least we can do. Knowing the Agency, the risks she will run in taking our evidence to the Galactic Court will be great—"

	"She says," said Fox, sotto voce.

	Lockhart felt suddenly, unreasonably angry. His face and neck began to burn and hot words rushed to his lips. But Hedley, speaking quickly, poured on the oil.

	"I admit the possibility that Miss Kelly is making fools of us," the agent said gravely, "but I am, myself, of the opinion that she is what she says she is, namely, a Federation agent whose duty it is to correct the situation here. I'm afraid we must operate on this assumption, do exactly as she says, and hope.

	"She and Cedric will take the evidence to the Galactic Court on Harla," he went on, "a dangerous job as Lockhart has pointed out. Our job, she has told us, is simply to furnish this evidence and leave everything else to her.

	"Doctor," he said, with an abrupt change of subject, "You're supposed to pick her up in fifteen minutes ..." Delicately, he left the sentence hanging.

	Lockhart nodded and rose. Fox tossed him the keys of the car and he turned to leave.

	"I did want to see that spaceship," said Keeler. He sounded like the victim of a great injustice.

	"That invisible spaceship?" Draper asked drily.

	The rest of the conversation was cut off as Lockhart closed the door behind him.

	What was wrong with him these days, Lockhart asked himself as he manoevured the car out of the park. He was jumpy, he lost his temper over nothing at all, and only yesterday he had wanted to murder Cedric—literally beat him to death. Lockhart had always considered himself to be a sane, well-integrated person with proper control of his emotions. A bit on the stuffy side, perhaps, but definitely a stable type. Yet here he was, just itching to pick a fight with someone.

	The fact that the 'someone' might be the only person capable of saving his ungrateful hide—along with billions of others—did not matter much. Just how selfishly stupid was it possible to become?

-

	Half an hour later Lockhart's black mood had dissolved in spite of himself. The Law of Sympathetic Magic, he thought wryly; the day was warm and cloudless, the kind that picnickers prayed for, and there was a fresh, clean breeze from the sea. And the face of the girl riding in the seat beside him was a reflection of the weather. Bright, warm and expectant, her expression brought back the memory of the time he had taken his little niece to her first circus. The look in the Kelly girl's eyes was exactly the same.

	Lockhart still had questions he wanted to ask, but seeing her like that made it difficult for him to remain suspicious. Conversely, it was hard to feel reassurance either. If this wide-eyed girl was to be their champion against the Agency ...

	Unless, the thought came writhing into Lockhart's mind, she had had the time to acquire sufficient experience to take care of herself and the interests of Earth both. There was, after all, the longevity treatment.

	But that particular line of thought was distasteful to Lockhart. He forced it out of his mind.

	The low stone walls bordering the road were temporarily cutting off their view of distant Dunluce Castle, and the Atlantic rollers breaking in white fury against the cliffs beneath it. For several seconds at least, Miss Kelly would have nothing to claim her attention.

	"I wonder," began Lockhart. "if you'd mind telling me something ...?

	What he wanted to know was how she meant to reach Harla, with the evidence that would certainly put the Agency out of business, and by using only Agency transport to get there. 

	She was quiet for so long after he put the question that Lockhart wondered whether or not she would answer at all. But finally she did.

	"Bribery," she said simply, then added, "I'd better explain what, I hope, will be my procedure.

	"To understand you must realise that the Agency is not completely bad," she went on. "Only a few of the highest officers know what is going; on here. The other employees would be horrified if they knew of it, and it is these who will, for a price, help me. The most dangerous part of the journey will be its beginning. The shuttle which is to land late tomorrow night will contain Agency men, but they will have undergone a conditioning process which keeps them from deserting or becoming too curious about their duties. This conditioning—the use of which in itself is criminal— dulls the mental efficiency, so that I should be able to convince them that—"

	"Wait," Lockhart broke in. "You said bribery. What can you bribe them with?"

	"This," she said, and held out a square, brightly coloured envelope so that he could see it without taking his attention from the road. It was a set of stereoscopic colour transparencies of the Swiss Alps. "There is nothing to match that scenery anywhere else in the Galaxy," she went on, a queer tightness in her voice. "One of these can be sold for a large fortune on any planet of the Federation. But their exchange value depends on how much profit the bursar of the ship carrying me will want, and other ship's officers will have to be bribed also. Probably it will require seven or eight of these to take me where I have to go."

	There was a bitter edge to her voice. Apparently a civilisation spread over hundreds of star systems had its equivalent of an Earthly black market.

	"I have several others at my hotel," the girl continued, '"but I need more. The type showing landscapes rather than cities or architectural subjects. We can get them in Londonderry this evening."

	It was hard to credit that trip half-way across the Galaxy was to be paid for in picture postcards, or their modern successors, rather. Lockhart had been told that the planet Earth was unique, but only now was he beginning to realise just how extraordinary a place it must be.

-

	At Portrush Lockhart turned inland to Colereine, and continued through Limavady towards Londonerry. Miss Kelly was quiet for most of the journey, but he did find out that Hargon, the old man in Paris, had been the chief administrator on Vitlimen before their superior—Harlnida—had asked him to find out why so many of his best men were dropping out of sight. Hargon had discovered the reason; Earth. The Agency had seen to it that anyone making their way to Earth never left it, and the once young and vital chief administrator of an entire planet had died, desperately fighting both the accelerating ageing of his body and the conditioning that demanded he kill himself at the slightest danger of his identity or origin being discovered.

	Lockhart thought of the capsule that had been in the old man's mouth, almost dissolved but not swallowed. Hargon had known that he was being watched then, and he had tried to help.

	In Derry Lockhart found a photographic dealer's and pulled up outside. The shop kept a stock of the transparencies which Miss Kelly wanted, and she began to sort through them. It was not long before Lockhart began to feel uncomfortable. He did some rapid mental arithmetic, then firmly took the girl to one side.

	"You've got over two hundred sets, and fourteen viewers, there," Lockhart whispered fiercely. "Enough, at your own valuation, to move half the population of Derry to the other side of the Galaxy. You can't need all of them, and anyway, I haven't enough money to pay for them."

	The girl gave him a startled, uneasy look, then quickly composed her features again. "I have money," she said, and drew out a half-inch thick bundle of clean, crisp one-pound notes. "Will you pay for them and ask that everything be packed very securely, please."

	Lockhart could not think of anything in what he had just said that could make her uneasy. He gave up trying and just did as he had been told.

	. It was in a restaurant an hour later that Lockhart again remembered the wad of notes. He said, "Where did you get all that money?"

	"Cedric gave it to me," Miss Kelly replied easily. She was holding a postcard with a picture of a roughly conical mountain on it which she had picked from a display stand near the exit. "The Agency makes it," she added.

	Lockhart choked on his coffee and went into a strangled fit of coughing. When he got his breath back he began angrily to explain about counterfeiters, the law regarding them, and the unfairness of passing such money to the innocent shopkeeper. He took a long time to run down.

	"Those were very good copies," the girl said quietly when he had finished. "The shopkeeper will lose nothing. And think what difference will real or counterfeit money make to him if an H-bomb drops within five miles of his shop."

	Deflated, Lockhart said nothing. If anyone was above the law it was her.

	"I would like to go there," Miss Kelly said suddenly. She dropped the postcard which she had been holding beside Lockhart's plate and tapped it with a slim finger.

	"Errigal?" said Lockhart. "But it's too far. Even if we start early tomorrow we might not get back in time to meet the ship ..."

	"I want to go there," she repeated firmly.

	Lockhart looked at her. As a doctor he had got to know people, the methods they used to fool others together with the even more complicated ways they tried to fool themselves. Take the Kelly girl here, for instance.

	She might not admit it to herself, Lockhart knew, probably the very idea of it was unthinkable to her, but he was convinced that Miss Kelly wanted desperately not to catch that ship.

-

Chapter XI

	They clung to the Land Survey marker that was conveniently placed near the summit of Mt. Errigal, trying to keep the gale which tore at their clothing from blowing them off the mountain. Sharp and clear where it was not obscured by low-flying clouds, the wild, cruel beauty of north Donegal lay around them. Like a loaf left too long in an oven and burnt, Mt. Muchish raised its brown, rounded summit five miles to the north-east. The clear, cold air made it seem so close that Lockhart felt that he could reach out and touch it. Everything was grey and purple and brown; tumbled, jagged rock, heather and the dark, wet brown of freshly-dug peat. Directly below them the road was a twisted yellow thread, and the tiny black knot in it was their car. The view was achingly, indescribably beautiful, but very definitely it was not pretty.

	And it was cold.

	The exertion of the climb had kept Lockhart so warm that he had given his heavy sports coat to Miss Kelly. Now he was beginning to regret his earlier gallantry.

	Judging by her pinched face and blue lips, the girl was suffering from the cold, too—suffering, but without really feeling anything. Her eyes and cheeks were wet—which could, Lockhart thought, be due to the strong wind. But several times already today she had burst into tears, and at scenery that fell far short of the breathtaking panorama now spread before them. Lockhart tapped her arm and pointed towards the distant speck of their car, his teeth were chattering too much for easy conversation. She ignored him.

	Lockhart glanced impatiently at his watch, then scrambled stiffly to his feet.

	They had been up here for over an hour!

	Urgently, he shouted, "We'll have to leave, or you'll miss that ship." He half-dragged the girl to her feet and began propelling her down the path.

	An hour, he thought. It had seemed to be not more than ten minutes. No wonder he was so cold.

	The path was steep and narrow, following the edge of a razor-backed ridge, and it was the only means of reaching the summit without the use of climbing tackle. It was safe enough, of course, provided one did not allow one's eyes to wander from it to the depths on either side. The sweat broke out on Lockhart when Miss Kelly, who was a short distance ahead of him, stopped suddenly. He bumped into her, nearly overbalancing both of them.

	"Wait!" she said, and pointed.

	It was a cloud, one of the low, cottony rainclouds that were blowing in from the sea. This one was headed straight for them. Lockhart could look down on it as it approached, until the up-draft caught it and sent it boiling up the slope towards them. Like a horde of maddened ghosts it rushed silently over and past them to stream out over the valley on the other side.

	The girl laughed exultantly and resumed the descent.

-

	Later, when the car was travelling as fast as the road conditions would permit, and sometimes a little faster, Lockhart asked worriedly, "When exactly will that ship land, Miss Kelly? We've wasted a lot of time here."

	He had only meant to show her the mountain, not climb it and spend over an hour at the top. If he did not bring the Kelly girl back in time, Hedley would have things to say—though probably not as harsh as the things Lockhart would be saying to himself. 

	"Wasted?"

	Lockhart kept his eyes on the road, but he knew immediately that he had made her angry. She took a deep breath.

	"As accurately as the transposed time-measuring systems will allow, I expect the ship to arrive between eleven-thirty tonight and two-fifteen tomorrow morning. And Dr. Lockhart," she went on coldly, "my name, or the abbreviation of it allowed to a person who has spent several hours alone with me, is 'Kelly'. That is the pronunciation, the spelling varies with the language used. I have mentioned this before.

	"The word-sound 'Miss', she added, a hint of apology creeping into her voice, "has very unpleasant connotations in the language of my home planet. You had no knowledge of this, I know, but the constant repetition of the word is irritating when linked with my name, especially when it is unnecessary."

	Lockhart sneaked a quick, sideways glance at her face. She was angry all right, he saw, but was it really at him? He had the impression that she was fighting a war with herself, and he was merely an innocent bystander. Again he wondered, was she deliberately trying to miss that ship, or at least, hoping she would miss it? She must have gone through a lot to reach Earth and Cedric, the ready-made fifth column inside the Agency: Lockhart remembered suddenly what the Professor had called her. Joan of Arc, he thought, was beginning to show signs of battle fatigue.

	Not that Lockhart blamed her. The forthcoming trip, to him, seemed to be dependent on luck rather than planning. He, personally, would not like to be in her shoes. Or maybe there was planning, but semi-barbaric Earthmen like Hedley and himself were incapable of understanding it.

	"I'm very sorry, Kelly," Lockhart said carefully. A few seconds elapsed, and he added, "My abbreviation is 'John'."

	"John is a pleasant name,' she said, all trace of anger gone from her voice. "Its sound is innocuous both in Galactic and the other planetary languages with which I am familiar. But this," she went on, her voice deadly serious, "is not the case with many of the often-used word-sounds in your language.

	"If you were a passenger on an Agency tourist ship you would have to be very careful about such things. Even an unthinking gesture or change of facial expression could cause serious trouble, and possibly death. That is the reason why the passengers adopt an attitude of ... "In considerable detail she explained the code of behaviour forced on interstellar travellers for their protection, a code that was supposed to make it impossible for one human to unknowingly insult another from a different cultural background. It was complicated.

	"A pleasure cruise on a ship like that wouldn't be very nice," Lockhart said. He laughed to ease the earlier tension. "I'm glad it's you and not me."

	The girl turned without answering and began staring through the farside window at something.

-

	He took a wrong turning just after leaving Letterkenny, and rather than use one of the secondary roads which would have brought him back on route—and which might also lose him completely—he had to backtrack. It was nearly eight o'clock when they reached Derry. Lockhart left the car for exactly three minutes, and when he returned he dumped a warm and odoriferous parcel in Kelly's lap and got behind the wheel again.

	"Fish and chips," he said. "It's all we've time for."

	Outside the town he let go with one hand and began feeding himself. Kelly hadn't left very much for him. But it didn't matter, his stomach was too tight with anxiety to hold much food.

	They were on the outskirts of Portrush when the girl said, "There's a building I want to visit here—"

	"Look, we haven't time," Lockhart snapped. Angrily, he pointed out that it was almost dusk, that the ship might arrive early, and that Hedley and the others must be worried stiff about them by now.

	"Please. It won't take long," she pleaded; then, "The next turn left."

	Lockhart swore under his breath, and nosed the car into a narrow street leading towards the sea front.

	It was a big white building which she pointed out to him, ablaze with neon lighting and with music drifting out through the brightly-lit foyer. Lockhart gave it an incredulous stare, shook his head and said, "You can dance?"

	"No," she replied. "But I come often with Cedric, for the music."

	ALFIE McCONNEL and his Orchestra were-featured nightly, the display poster outside had stated. It was a small outfit, Lockhart saw, but they most decidedly cooked with gas, and the numbers were dressed in a most pleasing fashion and served up hot— or was "cool" the word used nowadays. McConnel himself sang, played trumpet and waved his arms in front of the band, frequently doing all three during the course of a single number. Lockhart grew aware that his right foot, which had been tapping impatiently against the floor, was now beating time to the music and that he had no inclination whatever to stop it.

	The number ended and the band went into another. This time it was a waltz.

	"Please," Kelly said suddenly, "I would like to—to try it."

-

	The floor was crowded with couples shuffling around cheek to cheek and locked tightly together. Lockhart, who had taken his dancing seriously in his student days, deplored this modern habit of "creeping," but at least there was no skill required for it. He said, "Just one, remember," and glanced anxiously at his watch. They moved off.

	Lockhart had expected her to trip all over his feet, but he received a pleasant shock. He found himself forgetting that she had feet at all. Kelly seemed to possess a natural sense of rhythm, and the music moved her as though each separate chord was the controlling wire of a puppet-master. But it was only her feet that he was able to forget, because she had automatically adopted the cheek-to-cheek stranglehold of the "creepers "around them. It began to bother Lockhart, but pleasantly.

	"I remember this work," the girl said dreamily, her words muffled against his chest. "It was used in a film I saw about an artist whose short legs led to an advanced state of neuroticism, making it impossible for him to achieve complete adjustment to his environment and causing him much unhappiness." She sighed as the number came to an end, but showed no signs of leaving the floor. Lockhart listened helplessly to a Galactic judgement of Toulouse Lautrec in the middle of a suddenly empty floor.

	"We'll have to go now," Lockhart said firmly when she had finished, "I'm sorry."

	The band began another waltz.

	"No," Kelly said, "No." She turned quickly and hurried in the direction of a small group of unattached males over by the wall. Lockhart saw her go up to one of them, a sallow-faced character whose tie was a jangling discord against the screaming pattern of his shirt, and ask him to dance. Then Lockhart was at her elbow, urging her fiercely to leave.

	"Is Grandpa here annoying you?" the youth said, speaking out of the corner of his mouth. He also chewed gum. A hard man, obviously.

	Lockhart had visions of the girl losing herself in the crowd of dancers, disappearing. What could he tell Hedley if something like that happened? Anger surged up in him again, the same blind, murderous rage that had sent him after Cedric that evening in the hotel. It must have shown in his face, because the youth looked suddenly frightened and began to back away from him. Lockhart gripped Kelly tightly and guided her onto the floor again.

	Why, he asked himself, should she not have another dance? Why not several? His anger faded as he thought of the thing this girl was trying to do for him, and everybody else, too. If only he could help her in some concrete fashion, instead of merely trying to make her last few hours on Earth as pleasant as possible. Hedley, he decided fiercely, could wait. Lockhart had a sudden urge to protect her, to shield her from harm. Unconsciously, his hold on her grew even tighter.

	Without actually doing anything, Kelly in some subtle fashion, responded. Then Lockhart forgot Hedley, the Agency and everything else but the girl. His mouth was dry, he was sweating and his head seemed to be whirling though he did not feel the slightest bit dizzy. He thought helplessly, Oh, blast, soft lights and sweet music ...

	They were drawing abreast of the big french window which opened out onto a verandah, and the beach. He pushed her roughly towards it.

	"John!" Kelly said, startled.

	The breeze from the sea struck cold against his moist face. The cane chairs on the verandah were all filled, two shadowy forms to each chair. There were more couples lying on the moonlit sand below. He half-dragged, half-carried her across the verandah and down the steps to the beach.

	"John," she said again, sounding a little frightened.

	Across the soft, silvery beach, past the murmuring, prostrate twosomes, then up more steps. Lockhart carried her bodily up most of them. A few seconds later he was behind the wheel again, and Kelly was safely in the back seat. Lockhart was sweating profusely, and not only from his exertions.

	Another few minutes in that place, he thought, and Hedley would have seen neither of us tonight. Silently, viciously, Lockhart cursed himself for a fool. The girl was not simply leaving his town, or even his country. She was going several million light-years away, and in only a few hours time from now.

	Why, he asked himself in bitter self-disgust, did he have to start falling in love with her?

	It was five minutes to eleven when they drew up before Daly's Guest House in Portballintrae. A. stocky figure detached itself from the group waiting tensely beside the sea-wall. It was Hedley.

	"Where in blazes have you been," he said with a cold, deadly ferocity. "We thought you'd eloped."

-

Chapter XII

	"Anyway," he went on reasonably, "Keeler will have sense enough not to come too close. If he hasn't, his wife will." 

	They lay hidden in the sand dunes overlooking the White Rock, a tall pinnacle of limestone rising dramatically above the level beach. Though it was not at all convenient to the Bay Hotel, it was an unmistakable landmark for the ship whose invisibility rendered it partially blind, and the Hotel's station wagon would be on hand to take care of the new arrivals.

	But two hundred yards of sand, long grass and prickly bushes lay between the Rock and the roadway where the station wagon would be parked, and while Cedric and the conditioned extraterrestrial from the hotel were guiding the new arrivals over it— accompanied by one or more of the ship's crew—Kelly and Hedley's men would board the ship.

	At least one of the Agency's ship's man would have to go along so as to recover the Cloaks which they would all be using until they reached the car.

	In the hollow which sheltered them from the wind, Hedley moved restively, his eyes constantly searching the sky, the beach and the path which led back to the road. Suddenly he swore, and pointed.

	"Who's that!" he whispered angrily. "What are they doing there this time of night ...?"

	Lockhart could just make out three tiny figures far away along the beach. They seemed to be approaching slowly. Disgustedly, he thought that it would be just like somebody to blunder into them and spoil everything.

	Draper, who was crouched beside Hedley, pushed himself onto his knees and focussed his night glasses on them.

	"Well?" said Hedley impatiently.

	"They are," said Draper in a carefully neutral voice, "Keeler, his wife, and Junior."

	"But I told Keeler ... "Hedley began angrily, then stopped as he realised that Kelly might hear him at the other side of the hollow. There was no telling how she might react to this.

	"I expected this to happen," the Professor put in quietly. "I heard him telling his wife that nobody could stop him taking a midnight walk on the beach if he wanted one, and here he is. Mrs. Keeler knows most of what is going on, I expect, and went along to keep an eye on him. Junior, of course, goes where he likes. He probably trailed them from the hotel, it's like something he would do.

	Hedley said, "I hope so."

	In the silence which ensued, Lockhart's attention returned to the girl again. She was sitting apart from the others and staring fixedly out to sea. She's afraid, he thought. He wished he could do something.

	Hedley and the others had been polite, and very respectful, towards her. Their appreciation for the thing she was trying to do for them was unmistakable; the Professor, in his less restrained moments, had several times likened her to Joan of Arc. But not once had Lockhart heard one of them express concern for her, personally. They were too busy worrying about the Big Picture, he supposed, the state of the world at large.

	Didn't they think that Kelly was human. Or were extra-terrestrials supposed to be above such feelings. On a sudden impulse, Lockhart went across to her.

	"You'll do it, all right," he said reassuringly, and put his hand on her shoulder. "I know you will."

	Lockhart felt her stiffen. She glanced at him, then turned her head away. He drew his hand away and said awkwardly, "If I can do anything to help, tell me. I ... we ... appreciate what you're doing and, well ..." He ended with a rush. "If I could help by going along, I'd do it."

	And he meant what he said, Lockhart realised suddenly. Kelly had grown on him the past few days. But there was no chance of her taking him up on the offer. How could he help her; it would be like an aborigine trying to assist a private detective.

	Kelly looked round at him with a start. The corners of her mouth twitched before she turned her head away again. In a strained voice, she said, "Thank you, John."

	But suddenly there was no distance at all between them. Her arms were round his neck and she was making muffled, weeping noises against the shoulder of his jacket. Lockhart was too surprised to move. Dazed, he heard her tell him that she was sorry for something, but the blare of a car's horn sounded from the road before she told him what she was sorry for, and Hedley was beside them.

	"Is she all right?" the agent said urgently. "That's Cedric and the station wagon. The ship must be on the way down."

	Lockhart nodded. "Just nerves, I think."

	"Yes," said Hedley, "That's probably it. But—"

	He broke off as Kelly pushed herself away from Lockhart and grabbed for her bag. She produced a gadget rather like a large reading glass, held it in front of her face and began sweeping an ever-widening area of sky with it. Suddenly she said, "There it is!"

	A faint blob of greenish light showed on the inner face of the "lens," wobbling and growing larger as she kept it inside the instrument's field of view despite the trembling of her hand. It grew until the blob became a stubby torpedo-shape that almost filled the tiny screen. To the naked eye the sky was clear. It was hard to believe that two hundred feet of ship was practically landing on top of them. Kelly brought the instrument smoothly downward until her eye and it were in line with a point far up the beach, then she held it steady and nodded for Lockhart and Hedley to have a closer look.

	The screen showed a small section of beach, with the ship resting on broad triangular fins close to the water's edge. The picture was in pale green and black monochrome, and lacking in fine detail— rather like a radar picture he had once seen, Lockhart thought. But it was this defect which would make their entry of the ship possible.

	According to Kelly, a person who hid inside a field of total refraction—who became invisible, that was—automatically blinded himself to everything outside it unless he used an instrument similar to the one she was holding. With such an instrument, it was possible to see through a refraction field to a certain extent. Obstacles and people could be seen, but not clearly enough for purposes of identification. Therefore, when the passengers and crew-man whose job it was to collect their refraction field generators, or Cloaks, left their invisible and partially blind ship to follow Cedric and the Agency man to the station wagon ...

	Lockhart's mind was running over the plan for boarding the ship for the twentieth time when Kelly's voice brought him back with a start.

	"It's too far. We'll have to move closer."

	"Yes," Hedley agreed. "And before that goon from the hotel arrives with Cedric." He gave low-voiced instructions to the men crouched around him and they went half-crawling, half-running through the dunes in the direction of the ship. They stopped behind a rocky outcropping which Kelly said was as close to the ship as they dared go—about twenty yards. They had to take her word for that, of course, the beach looked deserted.

	But not completely deserted. Lockhart had forgotten the Keelers. They were less than a hundred yards away now, he saw, and walking slowly nearer. Their son was a few yards ahead of them, moodily throwing stones into the sea. Occasionally he let fly at some imaginary target on the beach or among the dunes. Lockhart heard someone cursing softly.

	"Here's Cedric," Draper whispered anxiously.

	Two figures were approaching from the direction of the White Rock. One of them held something up to his face every few minutes—a detector similar to Kelly's, Lockhart guessed. He crawled over to the girl and squinted over her shoulder. There should be something going on around the Agency ship by now, he told himself. There was.

	The detector showed nine tiny figures grouped around the base of the ship, and as he watched, eight of them moved away to join the pair approaching them. They were slow and awkward in their movements, and all of them held detectors before them, like a group of caricature detectives.

	The man from the hotel must have said something to them, for they followed him in single file back along the beach, with Cedric bringing up the rear. To the unaided eye Cedric was following the other man at a distance of twenty or thirty yards. It took very sharp eyes to see the little scufflings made by invisible feet in the sand between them.

	Cedric would pretend to get a stone in his shoe, fall behind, then join Hedley's party as soon as possible. But nobody had expected a crew-man to stand taking the air outside the ship. And the proximity of the Keelers was a further complication. Lockhart began to feel the first stirrings of panic. Something was going to go wrong here, horribly wrong.

	Just then Keeler stopped. He pointed at the dunes and said something to his wife—probably about the advisability of hiding before they got too near the White Rock which was where he expected the ship to land. Both of them turned sharply inland, the FBI man calling for his son to follow. Lockhart relaxed, and beside him he heard Hedley's sigh of relief.

	But young Keeler had other ideas, he wanted to go on throwing rocks. He made one last, bad-tempered throw before turning to follow his parents.

	The pebble hit the ship with a clang that must have been audible in Portrush.

	Things happened quickly after that. Lockhart saw Keeler break into a sprint towards his son, and his son start running in the direction from which that intriguing noise had come. Knowing that the ship would be invisible when it came, the FBI man must have guessed what had happened. Simultaneously the girl saw the Keeler's for the first time. Horror-stricken, she cried, "What are they doing here?"

	Lockhart snatched the detector from her suddenly trembling hands and lined it up on the base of the ship. The important part now was how the crew-man reacted to all this.

	The tiny, ghostly image had moved away from the ship, and it was clear enough for Lockhart to see that the man was fiddling with something at his waist. That meant only one thing, he was about to switch off the generator of his "Cloak "—as the refraction field was called—so as to clearly see the figures who were apparently charging towards him. Lockhart saw him exchange the detector which he had been using for another instrument. It looked like one of the needle-guns.

	Lockhart whispered a hasty account of what was going on to Hedley, then returned the detector to Kelly. For what was about to happen, he would not need it.

	The Keeler boy screamed suddenly, "Pop!"

	Though Lockhart knew the explanation for the effect now, the sight of the quivering, rippling head and shoulders of the Agency man—caused by residual radiation from his Cloak—sent a shiver of remembered horror along his spine. The last time this had happened had been in Paris when Gates had died. If something wasn't done quickly now, he knew that there would be a similar—and double—killing here.

	The Agency man was aiming at the cowering and terrified figure of young Keeler, obviously bent on dealing with the stationary target before finishing off the charging FBI man. Then Keeler's wife, seeing the twisting, undulating features of the crew-man for the first time, screamed ...

-

	A hydrogen bomb seemed to go off a few inches from Lockhart's ear as Draper fired his .45. The bullet spanged against the metal of the ship and whined off into the night. The Agency man whirled to face this new threat. Then a second bomb went off in his other ear as Hedley fired. The crew-man spun half around and pitched sideways onto the sand.

	Hedley said, "Come on!"

	Lockhart clutched his bag and charged with the others towards the apparently empty section of beach containing the ship. He saw Keeler land on the squirming Agency man and tear the weapon from him, Mrs. Keeler was hugging her son and crying and, far up the beach, the figure of Cedric was racing towards them, hotly pursued at a distance of about fifty yards by two other men whose outlines wavered with the after-radiation of their refraction fields. Lockhart stumbled into Hedley as the agent stopped and raised his gun again.

	"Don't kill them!" Kelly called urgently. "They have to work the ship!"

	Hedley grunted. His three shots kicked up sand ahead of their running feet. Cedric's pursuers halted so suddenly that one of them fell onto his knees.

	Suddenly the ship was towering into the night only a few yards away. Simultaneously with the appearance of the ship the beach vanished, being replaced by a cylindrical wall of silvery mist which encircled it to within a few yards. Lockhart heard Kelly directing that the wounded crew-man be brought to the ship, and suddenly the misty cylinder around them was filled with people milling around the ship's entry port. The Keelers came stumbling through the invisibility screen, Kelly having decided that it was too dangerous for them outside. They were followed closely by Cedric who came through it at a dead run. Kelly and Cedric entered the ship, followed quickly by Draper, Fox and Lockhart carrying the wounded Agency man, with Simpson bringing up the rear with Lockhart's bag. The Professor had long since been detailed to stand by the car and keep the engine running.

	There was a vague impression of spiral stairways and masses of surrealistic plumbing, but Lockhart was too rushed to notice details. They stopped in a small compartment filled with soft-looking chairs. Passenger lounge, Lockhart guessed. Kelly pointed to a shiny mechanism built into one of the walls, then left with Cedric for the control room, saying that she had to arrange her trip. Shortly afterwards, two pairs of footfalls went past the lounge, going upwards—no doubt the two members of the crew who had escorted the new arrivals.

	The wounded man was groaning softly on the floor. While Hedley and the others—self-consciously at first—gathered round the machine on the wall and began reading into it, Lockhart made a quick examination of the injury, then cleaned and dressed it. Carefully-chosen excerpts from Earth history, philosophy and politics droned about his ears, together with the other data which proved the extent of the Agency's crimes. It was not a very serious wound, the bullet had gone through a fleshy part of his thigh, but Lockhart took particular pains to make it a neat job. The doctor who would see it next would be an alien, and far advanced in medical science. Lockhart wanted him to think that he had been at least a good workman.

	He had a brief attack of dizziness at one point. He ignored it and was just finishing off with a sedative shot when Cedric reentered the room.

	With his characteristic mincing walk Cedric went over to the mechanism on the wall. He smiled apologetically at those grouped around it, then he pressed one of the buttons set on its side. A panel slid open revealing a pear-shaped plastic container which held a clear, colourless fluid like water.

	It was not until Cedric walked to the opposite wall, sipping daintily at the fluid on the way, and moved aside another panel that Lockhart realised what had been done to them.

	The Earth, from eighty miles up, was beautiful ...

-

Chapter XIII

	The surface was receding visibly. Their acceleration must be colossal. Yet apart from that momentary dizziness—which must have been due to the take-off, Lockhart guessed—there was no sensation at all.. That meant gravity control he thought, as more and more of the European land mass crawled into sight around the edge of the view-port. The dun-coloured surface was streaked and spotted with vivid orange, yellow and pink; high-flying cirrus clouds hit by the sunrise which had not yet reached the ground. It was a breath-takingly beautiful sight, but it was being spoiled by a gathering red haze.

	Lockhart burst out of the lounge, a scant two yards ahead of a suddenly white-lipped Hedley, in the grip of a rage which he could not even hope to control. His hands were so tightly clenched that they hurt. Never in all his life had Lockhart been made such a fool. He had trusted Kelly ...

	She would be in the control room, Lockhart told himself as he viciously pulled himself up ladders which—in the crew quarters— had replaced the spiral stairways of the passenger section. What she would be doing there, now that he knew her for the cheat and liar that she was, he did not know. But if he could only get his hands on her, he would ...

	The sound of Hedley close on his heels did not register fully with him until a large, strong hand closed around his ankle.

	"Where d'you think you're going?" Hedley asked, gasping.

	Lockhart told him where and why. He kicked out angrily, trying to free his foot from the agent's grip, but succeeded only in losing his balance so that he dropped a rung and almost fell from the ladder.

	"So she made fools of us," Hedley said, head thrown back and glaring up into Lockhart's face. "Does that mean you have to barge in when she's in the middle of a tricky situation. You don't know what exactly is going on up there, and one mistake on your part will mean curtains for everybody—and in your present frame of mind, you'll make mistakes."

	"But she's on their side—"

	"Don't be a fool!" Hedley was impatient as well as angry. "She's on our side, make no mistake about that. Dammit, I thought you, especially, would have been expecting, this, spending so much time with her as you did. The rest of us were."

	Lockhart gaped at him.

	Hedley said, "There was her refusal to allow Keeler and the Professor aboard the ship—though both would have been in little danger on a purely temporary visit to the ship. And her story about recording through a lie-detector! A recording could be faked just the same as documents and would be useless as evidence.

	"We were meant to go to Harla from the very first time she realised that you and the Professor were not Agency men, but Earth humans who knew, or suspected, enough to believe her when she told you who she was and what was going on."

	"But why didn't she tell us?"

	Hedley grimaced. "If she'd told us, I would have had to tell the department, and you can imagine the complications that would have caused. We could not have gone until a full investigation had been made, and by that time it would have been too late. I think she knew this, and decided to keep the whole truth from us until we were clear of Earth."

	Lockhart's mind seemed to be doing somersaults inside his head. So Hedley knew of, and condoned, the kidnapping of eight humans from Earth! Well, not exactly eight—the Keelers being on the ship was accidental. The realisation shocked him. It also caused the blind fury which had driven him towards the control room to subside. Lockhart was angry now only because he, alone, had been made to look foolish. Everyone else had expected this, and now that he thought of it, the girl had tried to tell him, or at least hint at it, on one or two occasions. Lockhart's protest was instinctive.

	"But supposing I—we—didn't want to come?"

	"I hope," said Hedley quietly, "that that is a purely rhetorical question."

	Looking into Hedley's level brown eyes, Lockhart made a surprising and very disquieting discovery. The agent was a fanatic, one of those hopeless, disillusioned idealists, so common after the war, who could not find anything to be idealistic about. Patriotism was these days referred to cynically as applied propaganda. But Hedley, he saw, had become a patriot again, and in the widest sense; his patriotism embraced a world and a species now, instead of merely a country and a race. Hedley had found an ideal again, one that in his quiet and matter-of-fact way the agent would not mind dying for.

	Lockhart felt very proud of knowing Hedley at that moment, proud, and very much ashamed of himself.

	"Doc, this is crazy," the agent said, grinning widely. "Come down where we can talk comfortably, for Pete's sake!"

	Hedley and Lockhart were spread vertically along about twenty feet of ladder, with the agent hanging grimly onto his right ankle. Lockhart smiled in spite of himself and began to descend. He had just reached deck level when there was a faint scraping sound from the deck above.

	There was somebody up there. Lockhart could see their outline through the open grill-work of the deck. And they had been there for some time, otherwise he would have heard their approach, which also meant that the conversation between Hedley and himself had been overheard ...

	The scraping sound of shoes against metal was repeated, and a pair of legs clad in dark blue slacks began to descend the ladder. Kelly!

	It was obvious from her face that she had heard everything. Lockhart deliberately looked away as she made to speak to him. He still felt angry, and an utter fool. He wanted to get his feelings under control before he risked talking to her again.

	"I'm sorry I had to mislead you ..." Kelly began.

	"We understand," Hedley said quickly, cutting short the apology. "But what about the Keelers. I told them to follow the main group to the lounge as a safety precaution—they would have been killed on the beach for sure. Can you have them landed again?"

	Kelly shook her head. "We rendezvous with the parent ship in seventeen hours, shortly before it resumes its journey. There is no time ...

	She stopped suddenly and changed the subject without warning. She looked frightened.

	"You are Agency recruits," she said quickly. "All of you with the exception of Cedric and myself, so act accordingly. The pretence will be necessary until we transfer to the parent ship, and afterwards unless I can find a trustworthy Agency official."

	She darted a glance upwards, and for the first time Lockhart heard the approaching footsteps. Kelly rushed on:

	"The officers of this ship know that Cedric is an Agency man, but not that he has changed sides, and he has convinced them that I am a high Agency official. Together we have made the Chief Officer believe that your group are Earthmen who have stumbled onto the Agency by accident, that you will do anything for the secret of longevity, and that your attempt to seize their ship was in the mistaken belief that the apparatus for administering the treatment was aboard. The error has now been pointed out to you by Cedric and I, and our job is to smuggle you aboard the parent ship without the other passengers knowing about it. The Agency welcomes Earth-human recruits. They are the only ones who can do efficient work on the planet. The Galactics, unless they have been conditioned into near uselessness, are 'softened' by contact with it."

	She opened her mouth to say something else, then changed her mind. The ship's officer was almost beside them.

	The man looked disappointingly ordinary. He had the same dark, vaguely Spanish features possessed by Kelly, but that was due to his world being populated by a single, homogenous race. Only Earth, Lockhart had discovered, was blessed—or cursed—with racial differences of colour and physique. He wore shorts and a loose blouse, with a row of badges vertically bisecting his chest. A heavy, cloak-like garment was thrown back from his shoulders, revealing the generator of his refraction field strapped to his waist. This had been one of the escorts for the new arrivals, until the shooting had brought him hurrying back to the ship.

	The officer looked with sharp curiosity at Lockhart and Hedley, then his face became expressionless. Folding his arms stiffly across his chest, he bowed his head slightly to each of them in turn. He wheeled and began to remount the ladder, talking rapidly to Kelly as he climbed.

	"You are to go to the control room for language impression," Kelly translated, motioning them nervously upwards. "They have two Educators there and you are to be given Galactic. He says it will save time and annoyance if you can understand what is being said to you during the transfer. And ... and ..."

	Her eyes were boring into Hedley, pleading, pitying and despairing all at once. Her face was white. "Oh, be careful," she sobbed, and turned quickly towards the ladder leading down to the passenger lounge.

	Lockhart followed a pair of feet and legs, clad incongruously in calf-length boots of completely transparent plastic, past two deck levels and along a catwalk to the control room. Too much was happening too quickly, he told himself helplessly. His brain could not accept the knowledge that he was no longer on Earth. Refusal to face reality was a mentally unhealthy reaction, he knew, the first step towards catatonia. But he did not want to fight against anything that these aliens might do to him. Let Hedley and the others do the thinking and worrying, this was too big and complicated for him now.

	Desperately, he wished that he could just wake up.

	They were led to a couple of chairs set in the middle of the small control room, a few feet behind the control-chairs which were spaced evenly before the semi-circular instrument board. There were large vision screens facing each chair, but the only one in operation was blocked by the head and shoulders of the officer using it. Abruptly the view was further curtailed by the other occupants of the control room standing over him. One held a heavy metal helmet with straps and wires hanging from it.

	Hedley watched him anxiously as they fitted the helmet tightly over his head; the agent would be next. An intolerable itching sensation began inside his skull, and Lockhart instinctively made to scratch it. But before his hand was raised six inches, everything—light, sound and feeling—switched off.

	Lockhart awoke as suddenly as he had been knocked out, and because his hands were still lying in his lap he saw his watch. Two hours had passed. With an incredulous glance at the officer standing over him, he looked across at the still-unconscious Hedley. The agent's hair was awry. Lockhart guessed that he had offered some resistance to the helmet being fitted after seeing what it had done to himself.

	"Attend, please!" the alien said briskly. "Go to the passenger compartment and send two more Earth-humans here for language instruction. Also—"

	"But you're speaking English!" Lockhart burst out.

	The officer looked impatient. "Speak Galactic," he said. "That gibberish means nothing to me."

	It was only then that Lockhart realised that he was thinking— sub-vocalising, rather—in two languages instead of one. Some Educator, he thought admiringly. Aloud, he said, "Sorry."

	The Galactic word for it felt awkward for his tongue, but he knew that he had pronounced it intelligibly.

	"Very well."

	From his general air of authority as well as the intricacy of the badges running down his blouse, Lockhart decided that this was the ship's Captain. The officer went on:

	"You will also see that these men carry the body of sub-Captain Kernetsin to me here, and that the Earthmen responsible for his death accompanies them."

	There were only two Educator helmets in the control room, Lockhart knew. Then what fate awaited the third man, the man who had shot this Kernetsin ...

	With a tremendous effort, Lockhart kept himself from looking at Hedley. This explained Kelly's panicky warning to the agent as they were coming to the control room. But why had she not been more specific, or used her influence to protect him? He could not answer, and speculation was useless at the moment. He had to head the Captain off somehow, and quickly. Lockhart was frightened by the other's expression. One wrong word and he might witness the summary execution of Hedley by the Captain.

	"But he wasn't killed—" Lockhart began quickly. He was interrupted.

	"So I have been told," the Captain said harshly. "But I trust he is dead now. Despite the fact that the projectile fired into his body contained none of the lethal and painless poisons, its large size must have caused widespread damage and bleeding which is impossible to repair or control. The suffering which this crude and barbarous weapon has caused him is inexcusable."

	His lips tightened, and he looked slightly sick.

	"But he's all right," Lockhart repeated, and began describing the wounded officer's condition. "Why not go and see for yourself."

	The Captain hesitated, then gestured for Lockhart to precede him from the control room.

	When they reached the passenger lounge, Lockhart saw that the occupants were grouped around Kelly, all talking loudly. Cedric stood beside and slightly in front of the girl, as if expecting violence. Mrs. Keeler was still crying despite—or maybe because of—the awkward attempts at reassurance by her husband. The only one enjoying himself was the boy, who was having a noisy game of Space Pirates at the observation port. Silence fell as the Captain appeared behind Lockhart and strode quickly to the prostrate Kernetsin.

	Kelly went pale when she saw that Hedley was not with them. Her face told Lockhart two things; she had been expecting it, and the penalty for shooting an Agency officer was severe. She thought that Hedley was already dead. Anger, a sick helpless anger began to boil up inside him, but Lockhart fought it down. He had to, for Hedley's sake.

	The Captain's eyes nicked about, missing nothing; the resilient plastic cushions stripped from nearby chairs on which the wounded man lay, Kernetsin's pale but relaxed face, his slow, even breathing, and finally the neatly-bandaged thigh. He gestured angrily for the dressings to be removed.

	As he gently uncovered the wound, Lockhart's mind began to work rapidly and on two levels. While describing the sleeping officer's injury and its treatment to the Captain he was arriving at an unpleasant and rather terrifying conclusion regarding Kelly. They had been depending on the girl too much. She was honestly trying to help them, he knew, and risking her life to do it, but she was no superwoman. Kelly was trusting to luck more than anything else. She had a wider knowledge than the Earth party of Galactic affairs, but her control of the present situation was practically non-existent—otherwise she would have done something to save Hedley. She had tried, probably, but without success.

	To Lockhart, it was painfully evident that if they were to save their world or themselves, they, the Earth humans, would have to do it—with Kelly's assistance.

	The Captain signalled for the dressing to be replaced. Straightening up, he gave Lockhart a peculiar, baffled look.

	"Are you a Doctor?"

	The word, in Galactic, was not quite "doctor," or "surgeon "either, but something like "medical technician." Lockhart swallowed nervously and nodded.

	"The damage seems to have been ... repaired," the Captain went on. For a moment his features worked uncontrollably, and Lockhart realised with a shock that the Captain was regarding him with awe. "I've heard of such work being done on the Central Worlds, and that the injured often survive, but out here ..."

	Surely, Lockhart's mind protested wildly, the Captain's words did not mean what they seemed to mean. These people possessed a fantastically advanced medical science; longevity, even immortality, perhaps. What was so awesome in a couple of neat sutures and a bandage ...?

	"If you wish," the Captain said, the harsh, tight lines of his face relaxing into a smile, "you may view the landing on your satellite from the control room."

	He wheeled and left the room, passing Hedley, who had just returned from the control room, at the doorway. He made no further mention of punishing the man who had been guilty of wounding sub-Captain Kernetsin. Apparently he had forgotten all about it.

-

Chapter XIV

	Lockhart sat in the ridiculously tiny sick-bay of the mighty Shekkaldor, pride of the Agency passenger fleet, using the few minutes left to him before the arrival of the ship's Medical Officer to try catching his mental breath. Of course, the words "sickbay" and "medical officer" were approximations only. Nobody took sick on this ship apparently, and judging by the equipment that was in sight, the man in charge of it seemed to be more librarian than doctor ...

	A sigh from the figure in the room's single bed broke into his thoughts. Though Kernetsin was doped semi-conscious, resting comfortably and in no danger at all, Lockhart had a look at him.

	He had a very warm feeling for the sub-Captain.

	Twenty-four hours ago in the ferry-ship the future had looked hopeless. Kelly had convinced its officers that Hedley's party were recruits, but the driving force that kept the Group together, Hedley himself, had been in deadly danger over the shooting of Kernetsin. Away from the civilised centre of the Federation, an eye for an eye seemed to be the rule. Lockhart had not known why his treating of the wounded officer produced such a marked thaw in the ferry-Captain's feelings until after the transfer to the parent ship. It was then that he found out that Kernetsin was sub-Captain, not of the ferry, but of the Shekkaldor, and that he was related to Kerron.

	Kerron was Captain of this ship, and as such was only a couple of steps below God. And this near-diety approved of Lockhart, apparently.

	But their good fortune did not end there. It had been explained to Lockhart that hyperspatial travel was instantaneous, that time was consumed only during take-offs, stopovers, and landings, and that the Shekkaldor, with just three brief stops on the way, was bound for Harla!

	The party was placed under a certain amount of restraint, however. They were forbidden contact with the other passengers, who were on a legitimate tour and had no idea of their proximity to the half-mythical planet Earth. But Hedley and the girl were not interested in passengers, they planned to win over any officers ignorant of—and therefore opposed to—the Agency's intentions for Earth, officers both sympathetic and powerful enough to protect them on the way to Harla.

	Kelly had wanted to tell everything to Captain Kerron. He had struck Lockhart as the stern, just and highly moral type who on Earth would have fitted well behind a High Court bench. Kelly believed that he could be trusted, and he was the ideal person to help on the ship, but the cautious Hedley had urged her to wait.

	Smiling inwardly, Lockhart looked closely at the face of his patient. The features were almost identical, the chief difference being that Kerron's hair was iron grey while Kernetsin's was jet black. But the Captain's grey looks were simply affectation, according to Kelly; the higher officers dyed their hair in an effort to look old and distinguished. The younger-looking Kernetsin was really Kerron's grandfather, Lockhart had learned. It did not seem so improbable when the twin factors of wholesale rejuvenation and authority based on ability rather than age were taken into account.

-

	The soft noise of a sliding panel made Lockhart look up. A man stood in the doorway dressed in shorts and blouse of what looked like liquid silver. He wore a red, sash-like affair across his chest, and his features were from the mould that had given Lockhart the impression that all the aliens were related. He stepped into the room, folded his arms, dipped his head by not more than half an inch and announced, "I am Naydrad."

	"I'm Lockhart." Naydrad was the ship's M.O., and courtesy towards a colleague was automatic with Lockhart. He stuck out his hand.

	Naydrad gave a startled look at the proffered hand, dipped his head again hastily, then bent over the patient. His ears were burning.

	Lockhart cursed his own stupidity under his breath. He had just dropped a large brick. And after Kelly's repeated warnings about making sudden and unthinking gestures to these people. God alone knew what an offer to shake hands meant on Naydrad's home planet.

	But it could not have been too insulting, because Naydrad quickly began asking questions. His questions were more detailed and searching than those of the ferry-ship's Captain, but they were also more revealing. The Shakkaldor's M.O. was woefully, and inexplicably, ignorant about the simplest things.

	Lockhart had resigned himself to the role of a child sitting at the other's feet, eagerly absorbing the simpler concepts—everything else being beyond his mental grasp, of course—of a true Master. That was what he had expected. But now Naydrad was hanging on his every word ...

	This, Lockhart reminded himself angrily, was a representative of a culture that spanned the Galaxy, a culture which had possessed the secret of longevity for centuries. Lockhart could contain his curiosity no longer.

	"You have, I believe, the means to extend life," he interposed hastily between the other's questions, "and are therefore far beyond Earth with your medical science. Why is it that such—er—crude methods of surgery interest you?"

	"Longevity," Naydrad answered, "is not a surgical treatment." He hesitated, then asked another question. "You and your companions risked much to join the Agency, and merely because of the longevity treatment. Why?"

	Feeling that it was a stupid question, Lockhart told him some of the reasons—both selfish and altruistic—why a person would like to increase his life-span. He ended "... Everybody wants to live longer. There is so much to do, to enjoy."

	"No," said Naydrad, and there was a great sadness in his eyes, "you are wrong. Galactic citizens undergo the treatment because it is the accepted thing to do. Long life is no longer striven for, unless one happens to be an exceptionally gifted person such as an Administrator or ..." he smiled wryly, "... a high executive of the Interstellar Travel Agency. There is nothing to do or to enjoy which retains its appeal after one normal lifetime. If one is rich enough, boredom can be held off for a time by travel, but even then ..."

	"But the science behind this longevity," Lockhart interrupted gently but insistently. Kelly had told him something of the cultural desert that was the Federation, but he could wait for further knowledge on that subject. Nodding towards the patient, he went on, "I had the impression that the Ferry-Captain intended killing this man, in the same way as we are sometimes forced to shoot an injured horse, until he saw what I had done to the wound. Surely you can cure such a simple injury?"

	"The medical science of the Federation is, and has been for many hundreds of years, preventative rather than curative," Naydrad explained. "In those early days life was still precious. Longevity and interstellar travel had come simultaneously, and every star system was a promise of escape from the monotony of home. Because of this, every machine, city and individual became weighed down with safety devices to ensure that this precious life would not be accidentally lost. Accidents due to gross physical injury became so rare that the ability to deal with them had been lost. But the promise was an empty one. There was nothing new under any sun, everywhere was the same.

	"Pain and sickness—thanks to preventative medicine and the efficiency of our safety devices—is virtually unknown, and pain is the only thing which frightens us. That is why our weapons are invariably lethal, and painless."

	As he talked, Naydrad drew a small, intricate mechanism from a recess in the wall and brought it towards Lockhart.

	"You are still obsessed with the thought of longevity," he said, smiling. "Permit me to make a demonstration."

-

	The machine looked like nothing Lockhart had ever seen before —probably, he decided, because it was meant to do something he had never heard about. Attached to it by a length of thin, silvery and highly flexible tubing was something which resembled one half of a pair of thick handcuffs. Naydrad slid the manacle onto Lockhart's wrist. As soon as it was in position, Lockhart felt a sharp tingling sensation over the veins in his wrist, as if several needles were pricking the area.

	"They are," said Naydrad when he mentioned it aloud. A few seconds later he released the manacle and replaced the gadget in its recess, returning with a ring in which was set a smooth red stone. "Wear this," he said casually. "When it turns black you will require a further longevity shot. I estimate that as being twenty-five to thirty of your years hence."

	When the meaning of the other's words penetrated, elation that was almost a pain surged through Lockhart. This was what he had wanted since that autopsy in Paris. But he had not been given details of the shot's composition. Where then was the altruism, the noble selflessness that had driven him to seek knowledge for the sake of his profession and his race? Did he, he asked himself in sudden self-loathing, want this only for himself? Surely there was more of the stuff around. If he could steal some and analyse it somehow ... He opened his mouth to speak. 

	But Naydrad was speaking again.

	"You can now see that the treatment means nothing to us," he said dryly. "Only Earth-humans consider it valuable, apparently." Naydrad held out a small sphere of transparent material containing a yellowish solution. "This contains enough for thirty shots— the equivalent of four hundred years of youthful, disease-free life. For various reasons, the treatment has to be given at shorter intervals towards the end.

	"But pardon me, you were about to speak."

	Lockhart, with his hand closed firmly around that tiny, infinitely precious globe thought, Sample; for analysis! That was if he did not use it only for himself, of course. Viciously, he pushed that thought out of his mind; He swallowed, and said, "If that is all there is to it, can I bring my friends here and—"

	"No!" said Naydrad sharply. "I dare not do what you ask. The Agency Headquarters on Harla give Earth recruits special training. Most of it is psychological, and I understand that the promise of longevity serves as an 'anchor' to deep, post-hypnotic instructions and conditioning."

	"Oh," said Lockhart. Then curiously, "What is this training for? What are they supposed to do?"

	As if I didn't know, he added bitterly to himself.

	"I know very little about it," Naydrad replied easily. "The Agency discovered Earth a long time ago and ever since have been charging astronomical prices for taking tourists to it, and just leaving them there. The tourists don't mind because it's supposed to be an unusually beautiful planet, and the Earth natives are not harmed in any way. From what I hear it is simply a piece of innocent exploitation on the Agency's part. But if the Federation Government heard about it they might make trouble.

	"The Agency isn't popular with the Government; it has become too big and powerful for just a business concern." Naydrad looked cautious. "That is why I am not very curious about Earth. There are people on this ship who were curious. They had a lot of memories erased, not to mention some other things which the Agency psychologists did to their minds. They weren't hurt, of course, but I wouldn't like it done to me."

-

	Lockhart felt anger rising in him again. It was a tightness in his chest and across his shoulders that demanded he take a swing at something to relieve it. Trying to keep a sarcastic edge out of his voice, he said, "Why did you risk giving me the shot? Professional courtesy, or something?"

	Naydrad looked at the figure of Kernetsin in the bed. "Yes," he said. "Something like that."

	"I suppose," said Lockhart bitingly, "it would be considered proper to make a return gift under the circumstances?"

	Naydrad looked confused, and hurt. He nodded.

	Lockhart's fingers found the packet in his breast pocket, then withdrew it. It was a stereoscopic transparency set showing views of Switzerland which he had absently put there on finding that Kelly already had that set. The girl had been right in one thing at least, he thought savagely; not all the Agency men knew, or approved of, what was happening on Earth. Naydrad especially, who paled at the bare mention of physical suffering, would certainly not approve it.

	With the exception of Kelly, Naydrad was the only alien with whom Lockhart felt comfortable. He might even grow to like the other in time. Also, Lockhart knew that Kelly and Hedley planned to take similar risks with other ship's officers. That knowledge consoled him, but only slightly.

	"Look at that!" he said, and slapped the brightly-coloured envelope into Naydrad's hand.

	He watched while Naydrad fumbled with the envelope and, suddenly excited, as he peered at the transparencies. He produced a lens from somewhere and examined them more closely. When he spoke his voice was an awed whisper.

	"Do you know how ... valuable ... this is?"

	Lockhart nodded.

	"I've heard about such pictures, but this is the first time I've seen some of them." Naydrad gave a long, shuddering sigh. "I can't believe that such ... such ... Oh, it is a beautiful planet!"

	"Yes," Lockhart said harshly, "Yes. And do you know what your harmless and innocent Agency is doing on that planet now, at this minute? Well, I'll tell you ..."

	Lockhart told him. He did not spare any of the grisly details— the pain, waste, disease and mutilation that was war. When he had finished, Lockhart saw that Naydrad looked considerably less healthy than their patient.

	"No," Naydrad protested. "No. You must be mistaken— "

	"Attention!" interrupted a voice quietly from the hitherto unnoticed speaker grill in the room. "Chief Medical Technician Naydrad and the Earth-human Lockhart to Kerron in Control. At once."

	So, Lockhart thought bitterly, Big Brother was watching you. Or listening, at least.

	He could offer no resistance as Naydrad hustled him out into the corridor. The ease with which his first attempt to subvert an Agency officer had been uncovered was a paralysing blow to mental and physical faculties alike.

	Naydrad seemed to be excited rather than worried by the summons to the Control room, it was an unprecedented occurrence. His eyes, however, showed that he was still digesting the facts which Lockhart had given him, and the process was causing him some distress. Lockhart could not understand his attitude at all.

	He was beginning to wonder if their conversation in sick-bay had been overheard, or whether the summons was for an entirely different reason, when Naydrad stopped abruptly and pressed a button on the corridor wall. A panel slid aside revealing a direct vision port.

	"We've landed on Retlone," he said. "It's a famous beauty spot. But why aren't we disembarking passengers ...?" Naydrad hurried on.

	Buzzers made hoarse, intermittent noises in the corridors they passed through, which were replaced—when they entered the passenger section—by loudspeakers requesting all passengers to stay in their cabins. Naydrad was beginning to look frightened. They covered the remaining distance to the Control room at a near run.

-

	Kelly was beside the Captain as they entered, staring at a vision screen which covered the whole of one wall. After one look, Lockhart knew that he had not been called to answer for this attempted subversion of Naydrad.

	"The position is this," Kerron said, motioning them closer. "We have been ordered by the port authorities here to vacate our ship so that it can be used to evacuate some of these people." He jabbed a finger at the screen, which showed a mob of shouting, fist-waving humanity surging onto the Shekkaldor's landing area. "If we refuse to do this, or try to take off again instead ..." his finger touched a stud on his desk, and the screen showed something that vaguely resembled a radar installation on the distant perimeter, "... then they will destroy the ship before we can leave atmosphere.

	"The reason for this panic," Kerron went on, and strange, he seemed to be talking only to Lockhart, "is this."

	The screen now showed a small, squat ship about half a mile distant. Black where it was not streaked with corrosion, it looked not much bigger than the Shekkaldor's ferry.

	"A Grosni!" Naydrad burst out. His face had gone white. "But can't their Medics help them? Nobody would want to live— "

	"Several thousands have already killed themselves," Kerron said harshly, "which includes most of their Medical technicians— possibly because they are a little more imaginative than most, and can foresee more clearly what is to come." His thin, ascetic face with its high, intellectual forehead registered an expression of shame, and a sick, incredulous disgust. "But it seems that—among some perverted beings—life becomes more valuable in proportion to the threat against it."

	Lockhart would not have called that perversion exactly—but he was suddenly aware that the Captain was speaking directly to him.

	As Naydrad has already guessed, that ship contains the normal-space segment of a Grosni. It is dying. I cannot believe that anything can be done to halt the process, but I have been assured that you can deal with it." He nodded towards the girl. "Kelly has important verbal information which must reach Harla without delay. She would like you to hurry."

	There was a peculiar stress laid on the final sentences. Kelly, he realised, had told Kerron all. He seemed very anxious to reach Harla now.

	"What do you want me to do?" Lockhart asked witheringly in English. "Just walk over, take its pulse and write a prescription?" He looked into the frightened, appealing eyes of Kelly. Switching back to Galactic, he protested, "I don't know anything about its metabolism or physiology. I need data, detailed information. Charts, too, if possible."

	It was Naydrad who gave him all the information that was known about the Grosni. When he had finished, Lockhart placed his hands flat on the Captain's control desk, purely as a precaution to keep him from falling to the floor. His head was spinning.

	Write a prescription, a voice gibbered inside his brain. Write a prescription, it cackled. Maybe a shot of penicillin will do the trick. Go on! Write fifty thousand tons of penicillin.

	Or would it be five hundred thousand tons? It was so easy to drop a nought sometimes ...

-

Chapter XV

	At a distance the Grosni ship had not been an aesthetically pleasing object, and close up it was ugly to the point of obscenity. Leprous patches of rust grew on its hull, which was scarred and pitted so deeply that in places it looked like the bark of a tree rather than metal plating. A row of dark, slot-like openings encircled the hull about eighty feet from the ground, from which sprouted a fringe of thin, ropy tentacles like limp spaghetti. Most of these lay motionless across the supply containers spilled around the ship's base, but some of them ... twitched.

	"I cannot understand it landing to die," Naydrad said. "They are usually more ... considerate." 

	Cedric said, "Please hurry."

	The tone, Lockhart noted curiously, was exactly that used to the doctor when a close relative is very ill—worried, and almost pleading. As he followed Cedric up the telescopic ladder—used once and abandoned in haste by a Retlonian port official—Lockhart wondered again what that previous contact with the Grosni had done to Cedric's mind to make him feel like that about them. The thought of something similar being done to his own mind made him shudder. Cedric, however, was the Grosni expert of the party, but what knowledge he had was of well Grosni, not sick ones.

	Hedley had said, "Think of it as an ordinary patient, Doctor. It's big, but it seems to be made up pretty much like a Human, and it uses ordinary air and water. Do your best to patch it up enough for it to take off. Kerron won't be able to stall the people here for more than a couple of hours, so be as fast as you can, Doc. There's an awful lot depending on you ..."

	Yes, Lockhart thought, that was the trouble. There was too much pressure on him. Had he been given the chance to study and experiment with an alien life-form—even one as fantastic as the Grosni— he would have jumped at it, providing, of course, that he was given time for the study. But to expect him to diagnose, treat and cure an alien being of some probably alien disease, and all within a few hours...

	He did not need reminding of his responsibilities, Lockhart thought angrily as he pulled himself up the ladder. If he failed to do the well-nigh impossible then the Shekkaldor would not reach Harla, the Earth party would not appear before the Galactic Court, and on Earth the Agency would have everything their own way. If anything was lacking in this, Lockhart thought bitterly, it certainly was not incentive.

	Cedric was several rungs above him on the ladder and Naydrad was following, but Lockhart did not look down. He had no head for heights. Instead he examined the slots from which the tentacles hung as he came level with them. They were deeply recessed and the yellow flaccid ropes went far into them and disappeared in darkness. From the bottom of one of the slots a thick liquid, like oily green porridge, oozed out and dripped slowly to the ground. There was a sharp, unpleasant smell: he turned his head away.

	From up here he had a good view of the three great, needle-peaked mountains overhanging the capital of Retlone which gave it the reputation of being one of the most beautiful places in the Galaxy. The mountains looked volcanic, but their bare slopes were streaked and dappled with vivid patches of brilliant colour. They were beautiful Lockhart admitted, in a garish sort of way.

	Naydrad had told him that the effect was due to oxides in the rock, adding cynically that the natives were always improving on nature with the help of paint-sprayers. The tourist trade, it seemed, was the same everywhere. Lockhart felt his eyes sliding away from the mountain to the ground immediately below him, and hastily finished his climb to the entry port.

	He went through a small lock into darkness, but Cedric was making the quick, sure noises of a person in unlit but familiar surroundings. Standing there Lockhart felt dull, unlocalised pains start suddenly in his head, chest and throat. They grew steadily more severe. Lock-hart's anxiety became outright fear as the pains mounted in intensity. He was on the verge of panic when they stopped suddenly.

	He was about to ask Cedric about the experience when the lights came on and he saw the interior of the compartment which they occupied. The sight drove the question out of his mind.

	"But this is for men," he burst out. "Look at the chairs, the ... the controls!"

	Naydrad came through the lock at that moment. He said, "The Human servicing engineers operate from here." He waved at the storage cabinets ranged around the room, the control panels with chairs facing them, and at the harsh brilliance of the lighting. There were patches of corrosion here, too, but the dirt which covered everything was from age rather than misuse. He explained, "They repair the purely mechanical—and accessible—parts of the ship, on request. They are not asked often as you can see."

	Lockhart digested that. He said, "Have the people here checked that the Grosni isn't planet-bound for mechanical reasons?"

	Naydrad shook his head. "The port official said that it was dying. Nobody approached the ship after that. Besides, it is only on the Central Worlds that such repairs are possible."

	"But suppose the trouble is partly mechanical," Lockhart protested. "I'm not an engineer ..."

	From the look on Naydrad's face Lockhart knew that it was no good his trying to shift, or at least divide, the responsibility of getting' this ship off Redone: the guilt or the glory would be all his own. Angrily, he said, "Oh, let's get on with it."

-

	Lockhart examined the chart which Naydrad unrolled. It was large, and certain sections of it were enlarged and finely detailed in red—those parts of the Grosni actually inside its ship. But the rest of it made Lockhart think of a map rather than a physiology chart. That was understandable: the scale, for one thing, was approximately three miles to the inch.

	The Grosni had been, and were, an amoeba-like life-form which continued to eat and grow indefinitely instead of fissioning when a certain size was reached and, as they were extremely long-lived, the true size of their bodies often approached planetary mass. Because of this uncontrollable hunger and growth interstellar travel became necessary for their continued survival, and this in its turn led them to a method of slowing down their fantastic rate of food consumption and growth.

	Instead of using the Hyper-drive method of propulsion for their ships they used it to warp their gigantic and cumbersome bodies with the exception of the brain, one respiratory opening and one feeding mouth with its connected manipulatory organs—into the hyper-dimension where the time-rate, and therefore their metabolism, was slowed almost to a stop. As their brains were not affected by this slow-down, this enabled them to travel in small ships instead of the hundred or more miles in diameter shells which they had been forced to use previously, and their food intake dropped in proportion.

	It was a highly artificial and biologically dangerous adaptation, because the greater part of their bodies existed in the gravity-free hyperdimension thus making atrophication inescapable. And they could not use the hyperdrive method of space-travel. That would have meant bringing their whole bodies together into one continuum, a body thousands, maybe millions of times too big for the ship carrying it. But the use of slow, reaction-driven ships did not worry such a very long-lived race.

	Occasionally, Lockhart had been told, a Grosni did die. When death occurred the organic and mechanical combination of controls which held its gargantuan body in the hyperdimension broke down, precipitating it into normal space around the dead brain.

	That was the explanation for the panic-striken mob besieging Kerron's ship. The dying Grosni was said to be young and relatively small, but the Retlonians wanted to flee the planet before a carcass one hundred miles or more in diameter burst into existence on top of them. Though help in the form of Federation transports was undoubtedly on the way, it might take hours or even days for enough of it to arrive. This might happen in minutes.

	Though the disaster would not kill everyone outright, the planet would be rendered uninhabitable forever by that awful mountain of corruption poisoning its atmosphere. Lockhart tried not to think of being buried under such a mountain and concentrated on the chart spread before him.

-

	He said, "These small areas marked in red are the organs which— er—come out into the ship. But where exactly are these segments placed in the ship, particularly the Grosni brain?" Looking at Cedric, he went on, "You said that you could communicate with the being. If I could find out what it thinks is wrong with it, that would help a lot. I presume there is none of the Grosni in this compartment?"

	"That is correct," Cedric said. "But you must understand that there is no difficulty in conversing with it ..." He began a stammering, confused explanation of why that was so which Lockhart cut off short. Cedric, while speaking Galactic, was understandable so long as he kept oft technical or involved subjects. Otherwise he might as well have spoken his own archaic English, which Lockhart could not understand at all.

	"If you can talk to each other that's all that matters," Lockhart said quickly.

	Cedric gave an angry shrug, muttered to himself, then moved to the centre of the compartment. He began unscrewing the fastenings of what looked like a manhole cover set flush with the floor. Naydrad and Lockhart went over to lend a hand.

	Suddenly there was the rushing whistle of air under pressure and the manhole cover sprang open. Lockhart gagged. It was the same sharp, unpleasant odour which he had met coming up the ladder outside, but here it could have been cut with a knife. Lockhart bent forward to look down.

	It was like gazing into a deep, smooth-walled well, but instead of there being water at the bottom of it, a green, oily porridge bubbled softly to itself. A ladder led downwards, and Lockhart could see rung after rung being covered by the green stuff. Air pressure had kept it down, but now that the cover had been removed it was pushing sluggishly upwards. At its present rate of climb it would be oozing into the compartment within twenty minutes.

	"What is it?" Lockhart asked.

	Cedric shook his head helplessly.

	The smell of the stuff suggested something to Lockhart, but he could not think exactly what it was at the moment. He said, "We can't go through that. Is there another way?"

	"No," Cedric said.

	Lockhart took a deep breath, then let it out slowly through his nose. He had seen the green stuff leaking from one of the tentacle slots near the base of the ship. That probably meant that the whole lower part of the vessel was filled with it. He said impatiently, "If I cannot get nearer to my—uh—patient than this, I can do nothing. Is there no means of draining the ship?"

	"Yes," said Cedric suddenly. "There is an opening which discharges the ashes from the vessel's motor ..." He probably meant radioactive waste from the power pile, Lockhart thought. "... but it can be opened only from inside the ship."

	There was no need for him to add that the controls for it were also submerged in green porridge, but deeply.

	Naydrad cleared his throat. "The repair engineers keep vacuum-suits here," he said. "If you were to use one to go down through this green substance ..."

	"Of course," Lockhart burst out. "But I don't know the position of the controls." He looked at Cedric. Lockhart was not at all anxious for the job himself, he just thought it a good idea.

	"Cedric is too small for the regulation vacuum-suit," Naydrad demurred. "But he could guide you to them through the suit radio. I," he added, a little too hastily, "will have to stay in touch with the Shekkaldor," he patted the communicator which was strapped to his chest.

	Lockhart was expected to do his own dirty work.

	Ten minutes later he was lowering himself into the green stuff, the cable of his RT set unwinding behind him. When it closed over his head he gripped the ladder in sudden panic—he had not realised that it would be so dark. But he forced his hands to release their hold and felt himself sinking. Lockhart had to drop to the bottom of this well, Cedric had told him, then enter another three-foot diameter pipe which led off it at right-angles. The air bubbles which gave the impression that the stuff was boiling pushed upwards along his suit. He began to wonder what the pressure would be like when he reached bottom.

	To keep his mind off such unpleasant thoughts he said to Cedric, "Is it possible for you to talk to the Grosni from where you are? If you could contact it and—"

	"You don't understand," Cedric's voice came impatiently through his 'phones. "There is no difficulty about speaking to it. I have been communicating with it constantly since entering the ship. I tried to explain ..." He hesitated, then went on worriedly, "but the Grosni does not answer. I thought it was about to contact us upon our entry, but it withdrew."

	"What the blazes are you talking about?" Lockhart said, then suddenly he got it. Telepathy!

	Why hadn't Naydrad told him that, Lockhart asked himself angrily. Then he remembered their hasty trip from the Shekkaldor, and his own constant stream of questions. Naydrad had been too busy answering him to volunteer information, and probably the Medic had thought that Lockhart had understood what Cedric had tried to tell him about it.

	He said urgently, "Can I talk to it? And will it talk to me?"

	"This is a dying Grosni," Naydrad's voice came warningly. "The Retlonian who visited the ship—"

	"You are talking to it," Cedric cut in. "But do you want it to talk to you?"

	"Of course I want it to talk dammit," Lockhart began irritably. Suddenly he almost cried out in agony.

	A white-hot lance of pain stabbed at his brain, and there was a sensation of tightness, of pressure, on it as well, and his lungs were on fire. Lockhart could feel himself breathing rapidly, but still he was choking. With part of his mind he knew that there was nothing wrong with him, and he remembered his peculiarly painful experience just after entering the ship. But his lungs were bursting and he was choking and the pain in his head was getting worse and worse ...

	The Grosni, Lockhart realised, was talking to him.

-

Chapter XVI

	Stop it!

	Maybe he screamed the words, or perhaps he only thought he did, but the result was the same. Lockhart's suffering ended with the abruptness of a light going out.

	So that, he thought shakily, was telepathy as practised by the Grosni. His feet touched bottom just then and he groped for the lead-off conduit. Entering it he soon found that travelling horizontally through the stuff was a lot harder than simply sinking into it—he felt as though he was swimming endlessly through a river of syrup, upstream. Inside the suit it grew hotter and hotter—it had been designed for use in a vacuum where surplus heat could radiate away, not for diving operations like this. The sweat poured from him, soaking his clothing and trickling into his eyes. He had never been good at the breast stroke. His arms were leaden weights on his shoulders. Lockhart wondered if he was making progress at all.

	He became aware of an obstruction. It felt like a tangle of thick rope. With a feeling of revulsion he remembered the tentacles trailing from the outside of the ship. He pushed his way through.

	A projection on his suit caught against something in passing. For an instant the pains returned. Lockhart thought, I'm sorry. The being was telepathic.

	It seemed like hours before he found the hatch control which Cedric had described. Lockhart tugged at it. It moved slightly, then suddenly he was hanging onto it for dear life.

	The thick, viscous liquid was in motion along the conduit and trying to pull him along with it. There were sucking, bubbling noises from somewhere, and all at once it was no longer black outside his helmet, but black streaked with green.

	"What's happening?" Lockhart called urgently.

	Cedric began stammering something about this ship being different from the one which he had known.

	"You have made a mistake," Naydrad cut in," but a fortunate one. The control which you activated has caused all cargo and inspection ports to open. The ship is draining rapidly. But I will have to tell the Shekkaldor what is happening. From over there it cannot be a reassuring sight."

	"Right," Lockhart said, relieved. "But come down and get me out of this blasted oven as soon as you can,"

	The flow through the conduit slackened and stopped. Lockhart released his grip on the control lever and wiped at the outside of his visor. He was lying inside a pipe five feet or so in diameter which curved away on both sides so that he could not see either end. A single tubular light ran along the ceiling, its harsh brilliance softened slightly by the green scum which coated it and everything else in sight. While waiting for the others to reach him Lockhart tried to sort out his impressions of the being who was supposed to be his patient.

	The Grosni was telepathic: it could receive and understand his thoughts. He had simply thought Stop it! and all sensations of pain had stopped, just like that. Telepathy, then, should be the answer to his communications problem at least, but it was not. When the Grosni tried to communicate with him ... Lockhart cringed at the memory of it.

	It did not seem right that telepathy should be one way. If transmission was possible at all it should be of the complete contents of the transmitting mind, not just a radiation which caused severe pain stimulation in the receiving brain. Cedric's experience with the Grosni had been mentally pain-free, and judging from what he had told Lockhart, his conditioning had been aimed only at making his physical surroundings bearable. But the Grosni in that instance had not been dying.

	Lockhart had the intensely frustrating feeling that the explanation was staring him in the face but that he was too stupid to see it. The green substance which had lately filled the ship was, he felt sure, an important datum ...

-

	Cedric and Naydrad arrived then, interrupting a train of thought which didn't seem to be going anywhere. When they had peeled off his vacuum suit, he said, "Take me to the brain segment." He had an idea that the Grosni telepathy would function more efficiently if he was close to the transmitting mind.

	But he was wrong. When he tentatively asked the being to make contact again it was the same as before. He thought Stop! and the pains ceased immediately. Then he began to wonder whether they had been exactly the same. The strangling, burning sensation in his throat and lungs seemed to have eased a little, but that might have been his imagination.

	The brain-casing was an upright metal ovoid ten feet high, housed in a thick-walled compartment in the very heart of the ship, and was constructed of small sliding plates which allowed for growth in the brain. The visual effect was of an outsize metallic pineapple. Cedric moved one of the six inspection panels aside to reveal a second, transparent, panel. Lockhart saw an expanse of greyish-pink convolutions with purple veining, surprisingly similar to the view of a human brain during a craniotomy. Lockhart could see nothing obviously wrong with it, but then he did not know how it should look.

	As he turned away, the pains which meant that the Grosni was trying to contact him washed briefly through his body. They were mild, but Lockhart had the idea that they were meant as a gentle reproof, as though the great being was impatient at his failure to see something which should be obvious.

	"Take me to the breathing orifice," he said to Cedric. His voice was harsh with self-anger.

	Several seconds before they reached the compartment containing the Grosni's respiratory opening Lockhart felt a decided tail-wind. Inside he saw that a ten-foot cube of metal occupied most of the space, one of its faces being a fine-mesh grill through which Lockhart could see into a narrow funnel of leathery, wrinkled flesh extending back for a distance of about twenty feet. But, he reminded himself, the cube was only ten feet square. Somewhere inside, the breathing mouth of the Grosni took a dive into the hyperdimension. A thick pipe left the cube and disappeared into the floor. Through it, Lockhart's chart told him, went the being's exhaled air for purification and re-use. With its slowed down metabolism the drawing of a single breath could take days or even weeks.

	"How does it carry enough air?" Lockhart asked suddenly. There was a small gale blowing into the compartment. "And what happens if dust or water should get in here?"

	"It was not like this on the other ship," Cedric said with a baffled expression. "There its breathing was scarcely noticeable ..."

	"This air is coming from outside," Naydrad broke in. "Through the open cargo ports. Why it is using so much of it I can't say. With regard to your second question, if there is danger of a liquid or other foreign substance being introduced into the breathing compartment, the door through which we entered closes automatically. Dust and bacteria are caught by organic filters within the organism."

	Lockhart said, "It's dry in here. That means that the door must have been sealed while that green stuff was flooding the ship. How did it breathe then?"

	"It didn't."

	'It didn't breathe' Lockhart repeated to himself as he turned away. But for how long had the being been unable to breathe? Or rather, how long had the green stuff been flooding the ship? Suddenly Lockhart decided that he knew, in broad outline, what had happened to the Grosni, and he knew what he would see two levels below at the being's ingestive system.

	The Grosni breathed air, used water and its food could be used by a human being provided he was desperate enough. Scarcely surprising then that its metabolism—though greatly slowed down—also paralleled that of the human body. Only the air in the ship was reused, the water and food wastes being evacuated from the main body in the hyper-dimension and not through the ship. The ship was packed with food and water stores, normally, Lockhart knew, so there was only one place for that greenish, semi-solid substance to come from.

-

	On the way down they had to pass the tentacle which Lockhart had struggled through to reach the hatch control. It had a roughened, fibrous tip—probably for gripping purposes—and further back two shorter, finer tentacles branched from it. These had soft, bulbous tips which had the watery look of eyes, and one was torn open and partially collapsed. Lockhart remembered catching his vacuum-suit against something here: He thought I'm sorry a second time.

	"This should not be here," Cedric said, pointing to the tangle on the floor and to the opening from which the tentacle emerged. It was a feeding appendage only, he explained, and had no purpose in a part of the ship used only by Human repairmen.

	"It was trying to do for itself what we have done for it," Lockhart said. "You can see that its tip is only a few yards short of the hatch control which I activated."

	But what had caused it to stop short?

	The compartment below was such a bewildering tangle that Lockhart had only a vague idea of its size. The feeding mouth was housed in another of the ten-foot cubes, with three distinct types of appendages sprouting upwards from what on a Human would be its lips. They spread out and most of them disappeared through slots in the walls. Cedric explained that the thick, heavy type protruded through seals in the hull above the cargo holds and were used for loading. The thinner type with multiple eye-clusters near their tips were for manipulating the various controls of the ship, and the type similar to that which they had seen a few minutes ago carried food to the Grosni mouth. Before the species had become technically advanced they had all been feeding appendages, but now they were of three specialised types.

	The Grosni did everything except breathe and think with its mouth!

	But Lockhart could not see into it, because a slow flood of the green substance oozed out between the roots of the tentacles encircling it and onto the floor. It looked remarkably like certain types of Human vomit, Lockhart thought, certainly it smelt like it.

	It was nice to have one's deductions borne out like this, Lockhart thought, and there was a further test he could make. He said silently, Come in again, please, then added hastily, But not too hard! The Grosni came in.

	As he had expected, the choking, strangled feeling in his throat and lungs was almost gone. But the ache in his head was still present. Lockhart remembered his earlier anxiety over being unable to diagnose the being's trouble, and smiled wryly to himself. That had never been a problem, because every time the Grosni touched his mind its symptoms were impressed on it so that he had felt exactly what the Grosni was feeling—or the nearest Human equivalent, that was.

	But the one draw-back was that it could not contact Lockhart fully enough to transmit a coherent message to him, because that would have meant concentrating all of its mind on his, making him feel all the pain that it felt, and very likely killing him in the process. Lockhart shook his head. Maybe he could manage without full contact.

	Maybe he had effected a cure already.

-

	The -way Lockhart saw it, the Grosni had suffered an acute digestive upset which had caused violent regurgitation of large quantities of partially digested food. This had filled the ship and, among other things, had cut off its air supply. The Grosni had landed the ship, tried to open it up to relieve its rapid strangulation, and had failed. Possibly, Lockhart thought, because the understandably rough landing had damaged something. Supplies had been sent out to it, then a Retlonian official had gone to see why its loading tentacles were not taking them aboard.

	Though he had not been aware of it at the time, Lockhart by opening up the ship had enabled it to breathe again. The rate at which air was pouring into its lungs showed that the Grosni metabolism could be speeded up despite the different time-rate of the hyper-dimension —probably an equivalent of adrenalin was released into its system in an emergency like this. All that now remained was to wait until the Grosni had enough air, then it would recover and begin helping itself. It should be moving a little already.

	But it did not move. Even the appendages which had given an occasional twitch were motionless now. Lockhart had the panicky feeling that it was dead and that its monstrous corpse was about to explode over them. Sweating, he unrolled the chart and began to study it again.

	From the mouth the Grosni oesophagus ran to a sort of muscular pump which forced the food into a number of smaller and narrower channels to its stomach. Each of these channels was, according to the chart, fitted with an organic valve which was supposed to insure the food going one way only, down. The pump and subsidiary valves would be controlled by involuntary muscles, he thought, not by conscious direction from the brain. What could make them not only relax, but reverse their normal operation?

	A disease peculiar to the being might cause such malfunctioning of the organs concerned, and if that were the case Lockhart could do precisely nothing for it. But such a disease would hardly explain the tentacular paralysis. Something of a more general and widespread nature had occurred, and its onset had been sudden ...

	"Take me to the brain again," Lockhart said suddenly.

	It was still the same ten-foot, metallic pineapple. At Lockhart's direction Cedric and Naydrad removed the covers of all six transparent inspection windows and he began a close, visual examination of the brain area exposed. He went around the brain-casing twice before he noticed the trace of yellowish matter overlying the greyish-pink convolutions of the organ. Lockhart had mistaken it for grease on one corner of the window. He noticed too that the sliding plates which allowed for the limited growth of the brain were warped slightly in that area, as if from internal pressure.

	Lockhart indicated the area with his finger. "I want the brain-casing removed here," he said, trying to keep his voice from shaking. "And bring my bag from the airlock."

	Underneath the plating was a thick, transparent membrane, the brain's organic sheath, and beneath that lay plainly revealed a tumor which was not quite as big as a football. It had ruptured, but only a small amount of the yellowish pus had been discharged onto the surrounding brain surface indicating that the growth had a more or less solid core, and it depressed that surface for a radius of two feet all around it. Here the blood-vessels were swollen dangerously.

	Tumor, probably malignant, with developing angioma.

	When Cedric returned with his instruments Lockhart lost no time. Working through a triangular flap cut in the sheath membrane he first opened the tumor, then began cutting out its contents. He could not risk removing it completely because of his ignorance regarding the placing or importance of blood-vessels or nerve connections in the area. All he could do was trim and pare away at it to relieve the compression on the brain, even though he knew that doing so meant that the growth must eventually return. He syphoned off the yellow discharge, withdrew and neatly sutured the membrane.

	Naydrad's face was like putty, and Lockhart saw where he had been sick on the floor. But the Grosni had already been sick on such an incredible scale that it struck him as an outrageous anti-climax. He giggled suddenly, then bit his lips to stop it. He was surprised to find that he was trembling all over. A human operation didn't affect him that way.

	"As I see it," Lockhart explained as the casing was being replaced, "the Grosni has had this growth for a long time. Pressing down on its brain, it caused gradually increasing mental confusion and loss of co-ordination. But the shock of its latest landing must have caused the growth to shift slightly—onto the part of its brain regulating the involuntary muscles of swallowing, and also paralysing the tentacles which surround its mouth. The result was a regurgitive spasm of incredible violence: consider the speed at which its abdominal contents emerged against the slowed-down metabolic rate of the hyper-dimension, and that spasm has not yet passed. The ship was quickly flooded with the stuff and it was strangling, unable to breathe, as well as being paralysed."

	"Is ... is it cured?" Naydrad asked as they left the compartment. His tone was just short of being worshipful.

	"We won't know until it begins moving," Lockhart said uncomfortably. He wasn't used to being worshipped. "The distance from the Grosni brain to its feeding mouth and connected tentacles is short in the hyper-dimension. The nerve impulses should not take long to reach it. But it is not cured. I have only tried to remove the cause of its paralysis. It may be able to take off again, if it wants to."

	"It will," Cedric stated. "No Grosni would knowingly cause death and destruction on this scale."

	They were back at their original point of entry when a shudder went through the ship. There was a crash and the ladder was torn away from the rim of the entry port. Crowding into the lock they saw the Grosni loading tentacles lashing about the base of the ship, and the telescopic ladder in wreckage on the ground. Suddenly the uncontrolled threshing ceased. One of the tentacles curled upwards, then another. Naydrad gave a yell as one wrapped itself around his waist and pulled him out, but Cedric submitted silently. Lockhart backed hurriedly as yet another came for him.

	And the Grosni was talking again ...

	This time it was different. The pain was still there, but now it was controlled, screened off from Lockhart's mind. Instead of a mind filled with pain and confusion he found coherence, and in the instant before the Grosni narrowed its transmission down to simple speech, Lockhart glimpsed an awful lot.

	Mixed with the awareness and impressions of a completely alien mind was the knowledge that the being had retained enough control during its suffering to contact him only when contact was requested, and then, out of thoughtfulness that was intensely humane if not Human, making the contact a diffuse one. Looking into that mind, and remembering the hurried and unsatisfactory work he had done on its brain, Lockhart felt like a louse.

	With the tentacle curled tightly around his waist Lockhart was lowered gently to the ground beside the others. Then, as it wrapped itself around a supply container and hoisted it effortlessly aloft, he received his last message from the Grosni. It was narrowed down to just three words which sounded silently within his brain.

	"Thank you, Doctor."

-

Chapter XVII

	Captain Kerron was a man who rarely showed approval of anything, Lockhart thought, and when he did a little went an awful long way. Lockhart felt his chest swell at the brief smile of approbation he received from the Captain at the conclusion of Naydrad's report.

	Behind Kerron the big view-screen showed the distant Grosni ship. The loading tentacles had been withdrawn and all openings sealed. Take-off must be imminent.

	The Captain's face grew suddenly stern again. His eyes practically bored holes in Lockhart and he said harshly, "Some of your party have been attempting to undermine loyalty to the Agency in a number of my officers. This must stop at once."

	Abruptly, Lockhart suffered a horrible sinking feeling. Beside him Naydrad moved restively. Cedric remained silent.

	Kerron's eyes noted the movement. He went on, "The girl Kelly has told me everything, and while I knew that certain of the wealthier members of the Tourist Class were being landed on Earth, I assure you I was unaware of the inhuman conditioning which was forced upon them, or of the political disruption being caused on your world. In the circumstances my duty is plain. We will proceed to Harla as quickly as possible, making just one call on the way. On arrival you will not be required to go to Agency Headquarters, but will be free to arrange a Hearing.

	"This will undoubtedly cause trouble for me with my superiors, but, apart from the thanks due you from this planet's inhabitants, I am grateful to you for saving my ship. You have therefore achieved your purpose of gaining protection in this ship for your party—my protection. Further subversion of my officers is unnecessary. It is bad for discipline, and there is the danger ..." his voice lowered perceptibly, though the other officers in the control room were well beyond ear-shot, "... that some of my men may be aware of this criminal core within the Agency, and be in sympathy with it, or even part of it.. If these men discovered your true purpose, you would be lucky to reach Harla alive."

	Lockhart breathed a deep sigh of relief. Kerron had had him worried for a moment, but the Captain seemed to be on their side all right. It was just that he ran a tight ship and wanted it to continue that way, and that his faith and loyalty in the Interstellar Travel Agency which employed him had been rudely shattered. It was probably these things which were the cause of the repressed anger in his voice.

	"For this reason," Kerron went on, "the Earth party have been moved out of Crew Quarters and given the freedom of the ship. They, and you, will find mixing with other races interesting, I expect. Just remember to keep silent regarding the Agency, it is for your own good.

	"That is all," he ended curtly. His nose wrinkled. "Except that I would suggest the three of you bathe as soon as possible."

-

	An hour later, free at last from the odour of Grosni and in an outfit loaned him by Naydrad, Lockhart went looking for Hedley. Despite what Kerron had told him he expected to see the Earth party together: they had all too much on their minds to go sightseeing round the ship. He found them in a small passenger lounge, and his entrance went unnoticed because they were crowded against the view-port watching the Grosni ship. It was taking off.

	Boiling clouds of dust and smoke obscured its outlines and softened the incandescent glare around its stern, and loud even through the hull of their ship its reaction motors screamed and thundered with a sound that could be felt rather than heard. Slowly it began to rise, veering, overcompensating, then veering again it staggered drunkenly upwards trailing a long blue spear of light after it. Lockhart bit down on his lip, swaying tensely in sympathy with that gyrating ship, thinking desperately that he should have advised the Grosni to wait a while before moving. A Human patient would have been on his back for days ...

	By some miracle the ship held vertical. With steadily mounting velocity it screamed upwards to become a shrinking blue star in the sky, then nothing. Lockhart let go his bruised lip and forced his fists to unclench themselves.

	"Well, well," came Fox's voice, followed by an admiring whistle. "You look real cute, Doctor."

	Lockhart tried not to show embarrassment as all eyes turned towards him. He was wearing the silver blouse with the diagonal red sash of a Chief Medical Technician, shorts and calf-length boots. Lockhart had shied at wearing the outfit, but Naydard had insisted that he was more than qualified to wear it—besides, these were the only spares which the other had. But Lockhart felt uncomfortably conscious of his bare knees.

	Though they were all smiling, Lockhart realised that it was not at his bare knees. It was Hedley who spoke first.

	"So you saved our bacon again, Doc," he said, waving towards two chairs beside him. "Come and sit down. There have been developments since you've seen us last, I want to talk to you."

	Lockhart was suddenly glad to sit down. All their problems were solved. He could relax.

	"If you mean about Kerron taking us to Harla," he said, "and giving us the freedom of the ship, I've heard it, from him."

	"Oh," said Hedley. He gave a half-angry toss of his head, then went on, "Doctor, I'm uneasy about all this. We've been too lucky. This trip to Harla should have been the trickiest part of the job, but we're having no trouble at all—"

	"Speak for yourself," Lockhart said tartly.

	Hedley grinned. "Yes, of course. You've been having all the trouble so far, and are directly responsible for this good luck I've been worrying about." His brows drew together and he fell silent, still worrying obviously.

	Lockhart ignored him, his eyes travelling idly about the room. Kelly was missing, he saw, and he had left Cedric singing madrigals—he supposed it was madrigals—in his bath, but everyone else was there. Draper, Simpson and Fox were talking quietly together at the viewport. They were not quite at ease and there was a tenseness in their expressions—a sort of lost, or rather transplanted, look. The Keelers were in a corner by themselves. Mrs. Keeler was chiding Junior in a tired, despairing voice, knowing that she was wasting her breath. Her husband was staring moodily at the floor. Deep lines had cut themselves into his forehead and around his mouth. Plainly he blamed himself for landing his family in their present fix.

-

	The Keelers puzzled Lockhart. The FBI man seemed very fond of his wife, and though he gave the impression of being easy-going to the point of laziness, his job proved that he was not the type to stand any nonsense—especially from an eight-year-old son. Young Keeler was an ex-quiz kid, of course, a species prone to spoiling by too much fame at a tender age, but Keeler seemed strangely awkward with the youngster.

	He was basing a lot on just a few impressions, he knew, but Lockhart suspected that Keeler had acquired his family ready-made—Mrs. Keeler perhaps having been a war-widow with a grown son when he married her. Perhaps too that acquisition had been recent, and the holiday in Ireland had been their honeymoon.'

	A fine honeymoon it had turned out to be.

	For some reason Lockhart began to think of Professor Brian and the other agent, Carson. The Professor had been left standing by their car at the beach, and Carson had been sent by Hedley to London with a last-minute report. He wondered what they were doing now.

	"You know," said Hedley, breaking suddenly into his thoughts, "Kerron gave us the freedom of his ship just a few minutes after you'd left for the Grosni ship. Kelly must have convinced him that you were quite a Doctor. And while you were over there, the ferry-ship took off. Peculiar."

	Lockhart was silent—not in thought, but because he felt suddenly too tired to think. Across the room Junior had left his mother and was prowling about the room with his space-blaster at the ready. It was the same gun with which he had soaked Fox in Portballintrae, but it was empty now and he had not yet found a way to re-fill it from the water dispensers in the ship. He looked slyly all round, then darted out into the corridor. Lockhart moved instinctively to stop him, then relaxed. There should be no danger out there now.

	But Hedley was looking at him as though expecting some comment. Lockhart said, "Er, I'm surprised the Retlonians let the ferry-ship take off."

	"Kerron was anxious to report the situation to his superiors, he said, and he agreed to filling the ferry-ship with natives providing one of his officers could take his message along. That's why the ferry wasn't blown out of the sky. And another thing. When you were busy with our large friend another ship landed and started embarking refugees. It was a Government ship—belonging to what I suppose we'd call the Federation Navy—sent here by one of the first Retlonian craft to flee. I was with Kelly and Kerron and saw it arrive." 

	Hedley paused. He looked down at his large, brown hands and went on, "I suggested that Kelly being a Federation Agent should contact the ship and arrange a transfer for us. I would have felt a lot easier with us on a Government ship. From Kerron's face I couldn't tell what he thought of the suggestion, but Kelly didn't like it at all, she thought we'd be better off where we were."

	Lockhart felt himself tightening up again. He had thought that they were all safe, that it would be just plain sailing from here on in. Maybe they were safe, Maybe they just did not know enough of the background to realise that Kelly's suspicious—to Hedley—behaviour was correct in the circumstances. Sardonically he remembered that only a short time ago Hedley had manfully defended the girl against his suspicious mind.

	"So you suspect her of something," Lockhart said. "What?"

	"I don't know, I just don't know," Hedley said irritably. "Maybe it's better to stay here for some reason, but ..." He broke off and swore under his breath.

	Hedley, Lockhart realised suddenly, was the worrying type, and it was obvious that the success of their mission was his personal responsibility. The agent's face was impassive and unreadable, but there was a stiffness in it that showed the effort needed to keep it that way, and Lockhart did not like the look in his eyes. He wondered if Hedley was going to go to pieces on them. If that happened ...

	"She knows the ropes here better than we do," Lockhart said reassuringly. "I wouldn't worry about it too much if I were you. But there are a few things I want to ask her myself. Where is she?"

	"With Kerron, probably," Hedley said shortly.

	"Now that we're on our way to Harla," Lockhart said, "it's time she gave us an idea what to expect there. How are we supposed to act in this Galactic Court, for instance ...?"

	Lockhart broke off as an officer entered the lounge and approached Hedley. He folded his arms, bowed and politely requested that the Earth party move to the main passenger lounge as this one would shortly become untenable. It appeared that the wiring under the floor required attention.

	Whether they liked it or not they were going to meet the other passengers.

-

	The Shekkaldor left Retlone and put the necessary distance between it and the planet's gravitational field for its Hyper-drive to function accurately, then it executed the shift through nowhere which brought it out somewhere else. That, despite Naydrad's explanation of the process, was how Lockhart thought of it, and in this case 'somewhere else' was the system of Karlning. They landed and disembarked the passengers who were natives of the planet, which took about half an hour. In another hour the routine of the port had been gone through and the ship was ready to leave.

	But six hours later they were still there.

	Hedley said, "What's Kerron hanging around for? He said he was going to take us to Harla as fast as he could."

	The same question was beginning to worry Lockhart. He continued his slow pacing along the corridor without saying anything. Kelly might know the answer, but the girl just wasn't available these days. He had not seen her since the landing on Retlone. And he was becoming as jumpy as Hedley.

	Sometimes he shared the agent's doubts about the girl, but then he would remember how she had looked at the concert in Paris, and on Mount Errigal. Mostly he thought of the way she had clung to him during that dance in Portrush. When he thought of that he invariably picked an argument with Hedley to give himself something else to think about, and to blow off steam. Kelly was not avoiding the Earth party so much as Lockhart himself. She was a Galactic Citizen who had allowed herself to relax before a barbarian by the name of Lockhart. She was probably keeping away from him in case he got the idea that it had been more than that.

	Kelly's lack of contact with the Earth party had been a source of anxiety at first. Remembering her warnings about the shipboard code of behaviour and manners—designed to avoid friction between individuals of widely differing cultural backgrounds—they had been worried about meeting passengers without a detailed knowledge of it. But to the Shekkaldor's passengers the Earth party could do no wrong, any lapses were either laughed off or ignored. The Grosni incident was responsible for that. And Fox.

	Fox could blow a mean mouth-organ. A passenger had heard him playing dolefully to himself in a corner of the main lounge, and now ... well, Sinatra never had a more enthusiastic and near-hysterical following. The craziness of it all made Lockhart wonder suddenly if Galactic citizens were so very superior to people like himself after all.

	His thoughts were rudely interrupted by Hedley gripping his arm.

	"Look!" the agent said, pointing through the view-port which they were passing. "The ferry-ship!"

	It was the ship which had landed on Earth, transferred them to the Shekkaldor and later taken a load of Retlonian refugees—and Kerron's report—to Harla. Now it was returning sliding silently downwards with the broad fins which gave aerodynamic stability catching the sunlight.

	"Maybe that's what Kerron has been waiting for," Hedley began thoughtfully, when the sound of running feet behind them made him stop. They turned quickly.

	Junior was moving so fast that he ran full tilt into Lockhart's legs. Grabbing two small fistsful of Lockhart's shirt he gasped out, "Come quick!"

	"What's wrong?" Hedley said sharply.

	Junior's eyes turned to Hedley. They were big and wide, though more with excitement than through fear, Lockhart thought. Junior fought for breath for several seconds, then panted, "It's Mr. Simpson and Mr. Draper. Pop says they're dead."

	From somewhere inside the ship there was the unmistakable sound of a revolver shot. It was repeated twice.

-

Chapter XVIII

	They reached the main lounge in seconds, then stopped abruptly just inside the entrance.

	Fox stood half crouching in the centre of the floor, a harmonica in his left hand and a heavy automatic pistol in his right—but there was nothing ludicrous about the look on his face. His gun pointed steadily at the figure in Astrogation section uniform who was half-sitting and half-lying against the wall. The officer was bleeding from the nose, there was a hole in the sleeve of his pale blue tunic and a little blood was trickling down past his wrist. The shattered remains of a needle gun lay near the hand.

	A few feet from Fox and with his back to him stood Keeler. The FBI man's gun covered the twenty-odd passengers currently inhabiting the lounge. His stance was more relaxed, but his freckles showed prominently. On the floor between them Simpson and Draper lay in abandoned attitudes, like unstrung puppets.

	Lockhart went across to them, but he knew that he could do nothing. The needle gun was a very civilised weapon, he thought bitterly: it was painless, but one of those poisoned needles anywhere on the body —even in an ear-lobe—meant death in seconds. Hedley spoke from behind him.

	"What happened here?"

	Fox was muttering steadily to himself, his eyes boring into the face of the officer on the floor. Hedley repeated himself, sharply.

	"I ... I didn't see it all," Fox said, his eyes shifting briefly towards Keeler. Lockhart sensed that he was angry, and embarrassed somehow, about something other than the two still figures on the floor.

	"I saw it," Keeler said thickly. "I saw it all."

	"Well?"

	"My son was hiding behind that," Keeler said, pointing to a large, heavily-upholstered chair. His voice was without inflexion and his eyes would not meet Hedley's. "An officer came in and my son jumped out on him from behind it. He yelled for the officer to 'stick 'em up' and he pointed his gun at him ..."

	Lockhart could see the bright plastic toy lying on the floor. It had been stepped on several times and showed it.

	"... this officer," Keeler went on, indicating the man lying against the wall, "drew a needle gun and stepped back, aiming it at the boy. Fox, Draper and Simpson were sitting close by. They jumped up. Simpson shouted that it was only a toy and grabbed the officer's arm. The needle gun went off. Simpson was still falling to the floor when the officer took aim and fired at Draper, who had made no movement other than rising from his chair. Draper fell. Fox closed with the officer and landed a couple on his face, knocking him where you see him. Then Fox drew his gun and held it on the officer and I thought he was going to kill him.

	"I didn't know what repercussions that might have," Keeler said, wetting his lips nervously. "So I sent Junior to get you. Shortly afterwards the officer tried to grab his needle gun, which was lying near him. Fox shot him in the arm, then fired twice at the weapon."

	Keeler met Hedley's eyes then for the first time. His freckles still looked like brown paint splattered on parchment, and his eyes were dark with pain. "I'm awful sorry,' he said.

	But he had nothing to apologise for, except Junior.

	Curtly, Hedley waved the apology aside. He said, "Doctor, Simpson and Draper were armed. Shoulder holsters. Give me their guns." He snapped his fingers. "Quick!"'

	Simpson had a .38. Draper had favoured a Webley .45, a veritable cannon of a weapon. As Lockhart passed the guns to Hedley he wished suddenly that he had known the two men better. He felt that he should feel sorrier that they were dead, and he was ashamed that he did not. But Simpson had been nondescript and unobtrusive to the point of non-existence, which probably explained why Hedley considered him one of the best men in the department. It was difficult to grieve for a man like that, however. And Draper, big, slow-moving, taciturn Draper who had not exchanged a dozen words with Lockhart since their first meeting ...

	Hedley had been very fond of Draper, Lockhart remembered. He felt suddenly anxious. Why had Hedley asked for the guns, and in that tone of voice? What was he going to do with them?

-

	Lockhart could not guess how this incident was going to affect their relations with Captain Kerron. Some very clear thinking was needed here, and quickly. But looking at the pale, immobile face of Hedley, and at his burning eyes, Lockhart knew that the agent was not thinking at all.

	Abruptly Hedley was not looking at him, but staring at something over his shoulder. Lockhart twisted around to see what it was.

	"Drop those weapons onto the floor. At once!"

	It was Kerron, Lockhart saw. The Captain was standing inside the other entrance to the lounge.

	"Quickly!" Kerron repeated harshly. "I could have had all of you killed without warning had I so desired. Drop them!"

	The Captain was not armed, but the six officers ranged on each side of him were, and their hands were very steady. Lockhart slewed around to find that the entrance Hedley and himself had used was also filled with officers holding needle guns. One of them was also holding a red-faced and silently struggling Junior. The Keeler boy had been unable to give warning of what was happening, but Lockhart could see teeth-marks on the restraining officer's thumb. He almost liked Junior at that moment.

	The guns of Hedley, Fox and Keeler thudded against the floor plastic. Lockhart straightened up.

	"The right to carry weapons is the prerogative of every Federation Citizen," the Captain began angrily, "and I allowed you to retain yours in the belief that you were sane, responsible beings. I was mistaken, you are nothing but—"

	"He killed two of my men," Hedley snapped, "and for no reason at all."

	"Simpson might have been an accident," Keeler put in loudly. "But he aimed deliberately at Draper. I saw it ..."

	Several of the passengers began protesting to the Captain as well. Lockhart realised that Fox must have made an awful lot of friends among them.

	"Quiet!" Kerron shouted. He pointed to one of the passengers. "You—what happened?"

	The recital was practically a word-by-word repetition of Keeler's. The Captain cut it off as the passenger was about to add opinions to the facts and turned to Hedley again.

	"My Astrogation officer was threatened by a weapon."

	"But it was a toy," Hedley said angrily. "A child's plaything which emits a harmless jet of water ..."

	"The officer did not know that it was harmless," Kerron interrupted harshly. "The shock of having it pointed at him, and of two of your men jumping up apparently to attack him from the flank, this could cause a panic reaction during which he would think it necessary to kill your men in self-defence. I am unable to blame him for his action ..."

	A deprecating cough made Kerron break off and glance aside. One of the passengers had something to say.

	"Before mid-day I was visiting my cabin," the man began nervously. "It's close to those occupied by the ship's officers. I ... I saw the Earth boy and the officer in question together in the corridor. The boy had his weapon and the officer was playing with him in such a way that he must have known with certainty that it was a toy. He could not, therefore have been afraid of it when the boy later surprised him."

	The Captain's eyes bored into those of the passenger while he spoke, but it was Kerron who lowered his gaze first. "This alters things," he said to Hedley, then he swung round on the recumbent Astrogation officer. "You! Get onto your feet. All of you, follow me. And put those things away," he said impatiently to the armed officers surrounding him. He turned and began leading the way to the control room.

-

	Lockhart had never before in all his life experienced such a tongue-lashing. Even Hedley's ears had been red. It was not that Kerron had accused them of anything specific, he simply—on the basis of their recent behaviour—ripped the whole earth culture to shreds. Speaking very softly he had begun by objectively viewing a civilisation which allowed its youth to amuse itself with 'toys' which were simply training models for the fullsize and lethal weapons which, he had no doubt, they would use just as frequently when they reached maturity.

	Kerron admitted that the culture held much of value—its music in particular displayed an emotional depth and a sensitivity that was unique in the Galaxy—but this barbarous aspect of Earth's civilisation he found repellant.

	Lockhart, though his face was burning with the rest of them, thought that Kerron was building an awful lot from just a toy gun. And there was something about it all that did not quite ring true. Lockhart wondered if the Captain was a fanatic of some kind, or a bit too civilised for his own peace of mind. When all Galactic citizens were allowed arms, why was he talking like this? But Lockhart didn't say anything. Kerron was not the sort of man one could interrupt.

	With a sudden change of tone, the Captain went on, "From now until we reach Harla the Earth party will stay in their quarters. They will have no contact with passengers and as little as possible with ship's personnel. This is for your protection.

	"However," he added, reaching into a pidgeon-hole behind his desk, "it is apparent that my Astrogation officer—for reasons which he is hardly likely to talk about—deliberately killed two of your men." He straightened with a needle-gun in his hand and slid it across to Hedley. "It is your right to perform the execution."

	Lockhart gaped at him. The Captain had been ranting at them about the savagery of Earth humans with one breath, then with the next he cold-bloodedly sentenced one of his officers to death, and at the hands of Hedley. With an effort Lockhart brought his disordered thoughts under control. Kerron's action was not in character with his previous behaviour. Something was going on ...

-

	The eyes of Keeler and Fox were glued to the needle gun as Hedley picked it up. The Astrogator stood with drooping shoulders, a dazed rather than a frightened expression on his face. Hedley's face was pale and strained as he took aim at the man who had killed two of his party, two of his friends. With awful certainty Lockhart knew that he was not thinking of their safety, or their purpose in reaching Harla, or anything but the tumbled bodies of Draper and Simpson in the main lounge, and vengence.

	"Stop!" Lockhart said urgently. "Are you mad?"

	Hedley ignored him.

	Lockhart's action then was instinctive, and stupid—he realised that when he had time to think about it afterwards. He stuck his hand in front of the tiny aperture of the weapon and said quickly, in English, "Use your head, man. This might be a test."

	Hedley gazed hypnotically at the hand blocking his line of fire, then he shuddered violently, and swore. He dropped the weapon onto Kerron's desk as though it had been red hot.

	"Of all the damn-fool things to do, Doc," he said. His face was still white, but something like sanity had returned to his eyes. "I might have killed you."

	But if it had been a test, Kerron gave no indication whether or not they had passed or failed it. He signalled for the Astrogator to be taken out, then he said, "We will arrive on Harla tomorrow. Be prepared to disembark. And Doctor," he turned to Lockhart, "I would advise you to remove that uniform. Your own clothing has been cleaned and will be returned to you shortly. It would cause comment, you understand, for an Earth human who was bringing charges against the Agency to appear in the uniform of one of its officers." He smiled faintly. "That is all. You may go now."

	So everything was going to be all right, Lockhart thought. But he felt strangely uneasy despite Kerron's reassurance. He tried to shake the feeling off. Probably it stemmed from his ignorance of the background forces which caused the Captain to react in ways which he could not understand, and which he therefore thought suspicious, a simple inferiority complex. He turned to leave.

	Suddenly he remembered a question which he could ask, and Kerron, if anybody, could give him the answer.

	"Where is Kelly?" he said. "Why haven't we seen her this past few days? She was supposed to stay close to us."

	Kerron nodded: "She was to have kept her eye on you, kept you out of trouble, and until the incident of a few minutes ago we didn't think you needed her. Your work with the Grosni insured your popularity with the passengers, and I thought that my authority would be sufficient protection against others. I was wrong, and I blame myself entirely for this tragedy.

	"But to answer your question, she is still doing the work of a Federation agent among certain of my officers. And though her efforts are unnecessary—I intend helping you in every way possible—I don't want to stop her because ..." The stern coldly composed mask of Kerron's face slipped for an instant, revealing a being tortured by fear, insecurity and a warring complexity of other emotions which were unreadable. "... I will need friends in the Administration when this is all over."

-

	Three hours later they were gathered in the storage compartment adjoining their cabins into which Kerron had put an adequate number of chairs, when Fox broke a long silence by saying, "That Kerron— he's a peculiar character."

	Hedley grunted. "When he gave us the run of the ship," he said, "you remember he warned us that there might be officers here who knew what the Agency was doing on Earth, and be hostile to us. That Astrogator must have been one of them. But giving, us that lecture, then handing me the gun to kill the officer ..." Hedley shook his head. "I guess we just don't know enough about these people yet.

	"But Kerron is afraid for his job," he went on. "You can see that. And he's trying to protect himself should the worst happen to him, whatever that might be. He's human after all, and I'm sorry for the hole we've put him in."

	A sharp report, muffled by intervening bulkheads, put a dramatic period to Hedley's concluding sentence. Lockhart jumped to his feet, the others stared wildly at each other. It was Hedley who relaxed first.

	"We're all here," he said, then disgustedly, "Somebody is probably playing around with one of our guns. I hope he hasn't blown somebody's head off with it."

	But, though he did not know it at the time, somebody had.

-

Chapter XIX

	The Earth party left the Shekkaldor through a cargo port while general interest was centred on the passenger gangways. Kelly still had not contacted them beyond sending written instructions for leaving the ship. A ground car driven by a brisk, competent young man in black blouse and shorts of severe cut whisked them towards the perimeter. They had a hurried look at Harla, capital city of the planet of the same name, before the car dipped into an underground tunnel.

	Everything, Lockhart was thinking angrily, had been done in a hurry in this affair. Something happened, an imperfect explanation was given for it, then something else occurred before it could be properly understood—and this, too, was only partly explained. There had been no time to think things out, to catch their mental breath. Lockhart didn't like that: he had a methodical mind. At the moment it seethed with questions.

	Harla was the centre of Galactic administration. The Court was here, and with Vitlimen in a nearby system made up the double heart of Galactic civilisation. It was on these, the Central Worlds, that they practised rudimentary surgery, repaired Grosni ships and did various other things which commanded the awed respect of the Galactic citizenery. And here, Lockhart thought, should be the answer to questions which had nagged at his mind since boarding the Shekkaldor.

	He caught a glimpse of some native Harlans when the ground-car stopped and they were transferring into what their driver told them was a pneumo-coach. The females wore blouses and long, tight trousers and the males wore loose ones, other than that they looked very ordinary. Two of them were laughing at something. They did not, as various people had led Lockhart to expect, look like citizens of a civilisation driven psychotic by boredom. They looked healthy and very sane.

	The present vehicle being automatic, their driver sat with them. Lockhart decided that now was as good a time as any to start satisfying his curiosity. Especially about Kelly.

	Hesitantly, he said, "I wonder if you'd mind telling me something about your—er—culture. There are some points on which I am not clear."

	The Harlan looked up. For the first time Lockhart noticed the old, experienced eyes in that youthful and probably many times rejuvenated face. He smiled and said, "Doctor Lockhart, isn't it? No, I don't mind. On this assignment answering your questions is part of my job."

	That was all Lockhart wanted.

	The first question was a complicated one, and the Harlan frowned thoughtfully for several seconds before answering. Then he said, "The information given to you about our civilisation is correct for the most part, but it has been highly coloured by its source. That is understandable. It came from members of what we call the 'tourist class', individuals who, although gifted in many ways, think that the galaxy has been created solely for their amusement. The need to experience new sensations is a neurosis with them, and you can understand, I think, how their defeatist slant on our civilisation stems from the fact that they could help it, but won't—a simple guilt complex.

	"Generally speaking," the Harlan went on, "the drab similarity of environment throughout the Galaxy causes cultural apathy rather than intense boredom. Boredom presupposes a certain amount of dissatisfaction, and a being cannot feel dissatisfied if he has no knowledge of anything better than his present state. The citizens of these worlds may be apathetic, unimaginative, moribund, but they are rarely bored.

	"Someday," he continued, "we will succeed in shaking them out of this cultural apathy. We are having a little success even now on some worlds. But it will require hard work and a lot of time. That is why it angers us to see gifted people wasting their time when they could be doing useful work, and business concerns growing rich and powerful—much too powerful, sometimes—catering to them ..."

	The Harlan broke off suddenly and laughed. "You will understand, naturally, that my slant is biased in favour of the Administration."

	Lockhart smiled faintly in return: he had not quite finished yet. When he spoke he was thinking of the time on Redone when Kelly had turned down their suggestion for transferring to a Federation ship. That incident had bothered him a lot.

	He said, "If Kelly is a Federation Agent, why did her account differ from yours?"

	"Because," the Harlan replied, "she isn't an Agent."

	Up till then nobody had been paying much attention to the conversation, but suddenly the Harlan was the focus of all eyes. Fox said, "What?" Cedric just gaped.

	"Oh! She didn't tell you, then," he said, looking faintly uncomfortable at his accidental breach of confidence. "No. She was one of the passengers on the Agency ship which Hargon was investigating. He decided to trust her with the information which he had obtained up till then—he knew it would be only a matter of time before he was killed or conditioned because of a slip he'd made—in the hope that she would bring it here. But a chance of gaining more information presented itself and she decided to carry on where Hargon left off.

	"Because of her youth she has not yet undergone the rejuvenation treatment and has unrealistic and romantic ideas about an Agent's work," the Harlan went on, "but she did that work exceedingly well. She reached Earth, was lucky in contacting Cedric—who gave her the Earth language spool—and eventually your group came along. Kelly is a most unusual girl to be of the Tourist class. She can be a real Agent if she wants that, unless she's decided by now that it would be more romantic to be something else." He gave Lockhart a peculiar look, adding dryly, "Something in the Medical speciality, perhaps."

	Before Lockhart could reply a surge of deceleration bent them forwards in their seats. The vehicle stopped and the Harlan led them across a small landing platform to an elevator. They shot upwards for what seemed a very long way.

	Almost talking to himself, Fox murmured, "She certainly is an unusual girl, doing what she did for us ..."

	"Yeah," Keeler said softly. "And her a civilian, too."

	The others were silent. It was a respectful silence.

-

	Lockhart was thinking that somebody should thank her—except that saying "Thank you "for saving a whole world's population was so utterly inadequate that it verged on being insulting. And somebody, himself, should apologise for the suspicions he'd had about her. The Harlan had told them that she was waiting for them in their quarters, but Lockhart found himself wanting to avoid her. It was his inferiority complex again, he thought angrily. But he kept remembering Port-rush, and that dance hall, and how he had almost stayed there until too late. The Professor had called her 'Joan of Arc'.

	She was unattainable—except, perhaps, by someone who was her intellectual and cultural equal.

	The elevator stopped and the Earth party were led along a bright, indirectly lit corridor to their quarters. These consisted of a large, central room with others leading off it, but nobody was paying attention to layout or appointments just then. One wall of the central room was a sheet of air-clear plastic, and through it they could see Harla.

	The city spread outwards before them to the horizon, the surface and air above it thronged with traffic. The architecture of the buildings was that of the simple, functional cube—impressive in their numbers and size, Lockhart thought, but not beautiful as individuals. All except one, that was.

	Less than a mile away a slender white tower rose tapering into the glaring blue of the sky, dominating the city. It was flawless, breathtaking, a poem in metal and plastic ...

	"That is the Court," the Harlan said, breaking the awed silence. There was more than just a trace of pride in his voice. He began quoting statistics.

	The Galactic Court was the most intricate and extensive linkage of electronic brains in existence, containing more than two cubic miles of electronic equipment. It was capable of solving hundreds of problems—or more precisely, passing hundreds of judgements—per minute with the impartiality possible only to a machine. Normally a 'judgement' was all that was necessary for most cases, but when something really serious came up—something requiring punishment, for instance—human 'judges' were, needed. A machine could judge fairly, but it could not pass sentence.

	In this case six Judges would be present. Harlnida, the planet's Chief Administrator, would be one of them, the other five—two of whom had Agency leanings were off-planet dignitaries of various types.

	"The reason for both friendly and hostile Judges during a Hearing," the Harlan explained, "is to avoid the danger of a too-harsh sentence being passed on the guilty party. The Judges possess the power of summary execution, provided they are all agreed on it, but that has not occurred for centuries.

	"You all know of the lie-detector system used by the Court," he went on. "Present your evidence clearly and truthfully and you have nothing to worry about. The Hearing is set for tomorrow. All that remains is for me to warn you to have no contact with strangers until then." He turned to go. "I will leave someone on guard at the elevator shaft in case—"

	"Just one man?" Hedley asked.

	"Some security system they've got here," Fox said in a scathing undertone to Keeler. The Harlan looked at him sharply.

	"We have sources of information within the Agency," the Harlan said with a touch of impatience, "and while their exact plans are unknown, we know with certainty that there will be no attempt by them on your lives. Widespread re-organisation is taking place within the Agency at the moment. The war planned for Earth has been called off and an attempt made to whitewash their activities there. The adverse decision of the Court will, of course, force them to reveal the co-ordinates of your planet so that a full investigation can be made. Our chief concern is not for the Hearing, but what we are going to do with you afterwards."

	His tone became almost apologetic.

	"You are an able race of Humans," he went on, "and will be capable of great things in the not-too-distant future. But knowledge of the Interstellar Drive or the Longevity treatment—which you are very close to discovering for yourselves, anyway—must come naturally for your healthy development. That is why, should you elect to return to Earth, all memories since your entry into the Agency ferry-ship must be erased.

	"However, you are welcome to stay here. There are many ways for you to assist us. And Doctor Lockhart especially ..."

	"Excuse me," Hedley broke in, "but it seems to me that the findings of the Court are being taken for granted. We were expecting more trouble than this."

	The Harlan held up his hand. "If your evidence is accepted by the Court as truthful, its findings are a certainty. So is the sentence."

	"So it's all over bar the shouting," Hedley said with a long sigh. The lines around his eyes and mouth were smoothing themselves away. "We've done it."

	"Yes," said the Harlan, smiling. He bowed slightly, then moved to the door. Before leaving he called something which sounded like 'Good-bye' in the direction of one of the side rooms. It was answered by Kelly's voice. Shortly afterwards she came into the main room.

-

	A shrill, wolf-whistle from Fox was cut short by a disapproving glare from Hedley. Lockhart saw that she had changed to the Harlan mode of dress, and while he couldn't say exactly what difference it made to her, he very definitely approved. But her face was pale and tense. She looked frightened.

	Lockhart said, "Hi, Secret Agent." He smiled. "I suppose they do call you Kelly? You've fooled us so much ..."

	He broke off. Kelly had clapped her hand to her face, whirled, and ran back the way she had come. The sound of muffled sobs came faintly through the open doorway. Lockhart, with a helpless look at Hedley, followed her inside.

	"We understand," Lockhart said, putting his arm around her shoulder reassuringly. "Please don't do that. Nobody's angry with you. On the contrary ..."

	"I meant to tell you everything," she said, sniffing, "before we left Earth. I was afraid. I wanted to tell you—that day in the car— but you changed the subject. It was too late afterwards. Kerron was keeping me busy and ..."

	"You can tell me now," Lockhart said placatingly. "The Harlan didn't say much about it." He gave her his handkerchief.

	She told him of the adventure, in detail, then of her background. Somehow, before Lockhart knew it, they were exchanging life stories. From the adjoining room came the sound of Fox playing "Frankie and Johnny "with Keeler and Hedley supplying the vocal until Junior threw a tantrum because he wanted to play the mouth-organ and Fox said no soap. Hedley said several times that it was a pity old straight-laced Kerron was not there to be properly thanked for what he had done for them—especially as he was almost certainly in trouble over it.

	The evening wore on and dusk fell. The stars came out.

	Lockhart knew then why this was called one of the Central Worlds. Here, in the centre of the galactic lens, the stars burned so thickly and so close that the sight of them caught at Lockhart's throat. It made him want to cry, or cheer, or something.

	A pounding on the outer door startled him. Lockhart gently but hurriedly eased Kelly's head away from his shoulder and got to his feet. The pounding was repeated, accompanied by a muffled voice, then the hiss of the sliding door. Lockhart, closely followed by Kelly, went quickly into the main room. When he saw who it was he almost laughed out loud.

	The hair was no longer dyed grey, the face wore a wide, loose grin instead of its customary severity, and the tall, commanding figure was slouched forward and swaying gently, but it was Kerron all right.

	"For Pete's sake," Fox said incredulously, "Just smell the man! Whisky ...!"

-

Chapter XX

	Despite his keen interest in their surroundings and in the processes of Galactic Law to be unfolded before him, Lockhart strongest emotion was shame. It was not that Kerron—intent as he had put it, on drowning his sorrows at being kicked out of his Senior Captaincy and celebrating the Earth party's success at the same time—had been the cause of his getting more than slightly drunk. The others had been pretty high, too, and after the tension of the past few days he couldn't blame them. It was simply that he had taken too much of Kerron's Earth whisky, and while under its influence had proposed several times to Kelly. He was ashamed of that.

	If Kerron's arrival had not interrupted them he would have proposed to her anyway, but sober instead of drunk.

	The only good thing about the affair was the absence of a hangover. Maybe it was as a bibulous, woebegone yet strangely likable ex-Captain Kerron had stated, that the constant ducking in and out of hyperspace had that affect on his smuggled Earth liquor, or maybe he had been making a joke. It was hard to think of Kerron making a joke, but then it was hard to think of him drunk.

	Beside him Kelly moved restively. "The Judges are coming in," she said. "It won't be long now."

	The great domed hall set atop the Court building could hold two thousand comfortably and had never been filled before, now it held almost double that and they did not seem to mind the discomfort. In the centre of the vast room was a white dais with two dull metal cabinets on it, with a chair between them. The cabinets were the visible part of the Lie-detector, and of the associated mechanism designed to tell if the witness was using some means to beat the Detector. Their findings were communicated by indicator lights set above each. The Judges' positions were about twenty yards from the Detector, and between were what Lockhart mentally referred to as the defence counsels. Also in this area, but nearer to the public section, sat Hedley, Keeler and Fox, plus a few Court technicians. Lockhart, who was in the first row of the public inclosure, could see that Hedley was beginning to fidget.

	As the six Judges took up their positions, Kelly pointed out Harlnida, the Chief Administrator. He had a young, strong face that was compelling solely because of the eyes. The eyes were old—hundreds of years old—and very, very wise. With no formalities at all the signal was given to commence.

	Lockhart set his pile of notes on the chair beside him—which had been occupied by Mrs. Keeler until Junior had begun acting up and they had to leave. He checked his two-way radio, making sure the button 'speaker would not slip from his ear, and settled back to wait until he was needed.

	Hedley had wanted a prompter in case some of them forgot parts of their evidence, and Kelly had procured the two sets. Nobody had objected to their use. Without them he would have had to shout across thirty or forty feet to the agent.

	Galactic was not a flowery language. Had Shakespeare written Mark Antony's speech in it, much of the emotional content would have been lost. But the Agency counsellor did not do badly despite that.

	He opened by admitting that the Interstellar Travel Agency had been guilty of secretly taking small numbers of tourists to Earth, that very large sums of money were charged for the trip, and considerable profit was made from the undercover sale of pictures and music tapes taken on the planet. All this was admitted, and while they could only throw themselves at the mercy of the Judges for unlawfully keeping secret the existence and position of an inhabited world, he stressed the fact that avarice was only part—the smallest part—of their reason for doing this. It was done mainly for the protection of the Galactic Federation.

	The Earth culture he likened to an edible root whose foliage contained a deadly poison. The planet was dangerous, its people and their products a threat to the mental stability of Galactic Citizens unless a filter was interposed which allowed only the harmless, or relatively harmless, portion through. The Agency had been this filter, conducting an altruistic censorship which could be better appreciated by Human Judges than a machine.

	One of the Judges, wearing the blue sash of the off-planet resident, interrupted at that point. He said, "The Court, though a machine, can evaluate the property which we call altruism if proof of altruism exists. Does it?"

-

	The Agency counsellor was silent for a moment, then he said carefully, "Agency personnel are given protective hypnotic conditioning before landing on the planet, and none of them are immediately available—"

	"Conditioning! That is forbidden, being both a violation of privacy and in its grosser forms actual enslavement—"

	"The process is both harmless and temporary," the counsellor said quickly. "Not, as these three members of the Earth party will later suggest to you, a widespread and inhuman method of ridding ourselves of the tourists we take to the planet." He paused and went on more slowly, "We admit that these Tourists rarely if ever return, but that is because they choose to stay. They are not interfered with either mentally or physically, with the exception of Educator treatment on Earth language and customs. Protective devices and money are supplied them, and they may continue with Longevity treatments as long as they please.

	"These charges against the Agency," he continued in a voice throbbing with righteous anger, "are lies brought by a group of scheming, vicious Earth-humans whose abberated intelligence is shown by the way in which they forced entrance onto an Agency ship, there making heroes of themselves to its passengers by the action of one of their number ..." Here he turned to point accusingly at Lockhart. "... in curing a Grosni which was said to be dying. Oh yes, they made friends on the Shekkaldor, all right—rich, powerful friends. And I would suggest that it is these 'friends' with their resources and knowledge of current conditions in the Federation who are responsible for these charges against us. If the Agency could be discredited, ruined, then certain business organisations who have been bemoaning the fact of the Agency's monopoly of interstellar commercial transport would stand to profit. Not to mention," he added, with an oblique glance at Harlnida, "the relief it would give the Administration, who have been accusing it of sedition for the past century or so."

	Besides Lockhart, Kelly said worriedly, "Why is he conducting it like this? He should be blaming the crimes on a secret group within the Agency, offering co-operation to bring them to justice, and trying to salvage what remains of the business. Instead you would think he was trying to win the case."

	"But I am convinced that this vicious conspiracy must fail," the Agency counsel was saying. "No matter what ingenious scheme they have thought up to fool the Court—and again I would stress that they are an able, intelligent and extremely dangerous race—the attempt must fail. If it does not, and these ... these savages gain a favourable decision ..." His shoulders drooped, and in a voice thick with suppressed emotion he said, "If permitted I will show two vision recordings which give some idea how an Earth-human can behave."

	In Lockhart's ear-speaker the tinny voice of Hedley said, "This man's good. But what's he playing at ...?"

	Just then Harlnida interrupted to ask if there were witnesses present who could state to the Lie-detector that these records were complete, accurate and true.

	"No," Agency counsel replied. "One is a fragment only, taken by a passenger during a quarrel between the Shekkaldor's Astrogation Officer and this man." He pointed to Fox. "The other was taken simply because the same officer had to leave his desk and left a sound and vision recorder trained on it in case a message arrived for him in his absence. The passenger left this morning on the Shekkaldor, as did the member of the crew who first saw the body."

	Body: What body? The bodies of Simpson and Draper had been buried in space shortly after their deaths. Kerron had insisted— understandably—-on that, because of the accelerated decomposition which the poisoned needles caused. Lockhart felt a sudden premonition of disaster. What body was this?

	A signal must have passed between the Judges. Harlnida said, "Permission is granted—though personally, I fail to see why these recordings are being presented when the Earth-humans will ultimately undergo Detector questioning."

	The Agency man asked that the windows be polarised. Lockhart watched a large white screen being lowered from the domed ceiling. He could view it comfortably by lying back in his seat. Lockhart indicated the counsellor and said, "Why don't they put him under this super lie-detector of yours? He's not only twisting the facts, he's tying them into knots."

	Kelly shook her head impatiently. "He is acting on instructions, and believes that he has been told the true facts. Can't you see that?" She bit her lip. "This is insane. The only reason I can see for his conduct is to panic you into some action which would discredit you. Or possibly he wants to arouse feeling against you among the Judges and public. But I don't see how he can. His evidence is not verifiable by Detector, yours is. He's throwing the case away."

	The sharpness of Kelly's tone angered Lockhart, even though he knew that both it and his anger were due to their rapidly growing anxiety.

	The light dimmed. A picture, in colour but without sound, appeared on the screen. It showed the Shekkaldor's Astrogator staggering backwards against a wall and slumping to the floor. It showed the blood pouring from his nose, then the picture slewed crazily and Fox filled the screen. The bodies of Simpson and Draper were not in view, neither was Keeler: just Fox. And Fox was holding a revolver, his face distorted by rage and grief. Fox mouthed something and smoke spurted from the gun. The picture swung to the Astrogator again. It showed him gripping his arm tightly, his face contorted in pain and blood from his wound beginning to ooze through his fingers. It did not show the needle gun he had been trying to snatch from the floor. Then it blanked out.

	Shocked, incredulous gasps arose from the public section. Hedley began protesting loudly that there was more to the picture than had been shown, but the stern voice of a Judge ordered him to be silent.

	There was more, and worse, to come.

	This time the Astrogator's back was shown, sitting stiffly in a chair before his control desk. A second figure moved into view, also with his back to the camera pick-up. It was dressed in Earth-style clothing and held a revolver which was pointed at the Astrogator's head. The figure looked oddly familiar to Lockhart, until with a mind-wrenching shock he realised that it was himself.

	Or rather, it was wearing Lockhart's clothing.

	This visual record included sound, and the report of the gun was thunderous. The officer was flung forward by the force of the bullet, a round, dark hole appearing in the back of his neck like magic. Then his swivel seat turned slightly, and he slipped off to lie face upwards on the floor. But somebody must have notched the bullet with which he had been shot. 'Face' was not the proper word for that bloody eruption. Lockhart had seen worse sights during the war, but not much.

	"That wasn't me," Lockhart burst out. "I didn't see that officer after we left him in the control room with Kerron ..."

	He broke off as light returned. Kelly was looking at him. So were the six Judges and all of the crowd. Their faces were sickly pale, and from the public section a low, angry muttering had begun. Lockhart knew that the Grosni incident on Retlone had made him a hero, a legendary figure whose offences against custom were laughed off. That, he knew without false modesty, was the chief reason their trip here had been relatively trouble-free. But looking at the white, angry faces glaring at him now, he reminded himself that the Devil was a legendary figure, too ...

	"I know it wasn't you," Kelly said. "But ... but I'm frightened ..."

	"He's trying to get the crowd to lynch us before we get a chance to testify," Lockhart said wildly. A few minutes ago he would have laughed at such a melodramatic suggestion, but now there was nothing in it to laugh at.

	"They would not commit violence like that," Kelly said, reproof in her tone. "They are civilised people."

-

	It was several minutes before the Judges restored silence and order. During that time Lockhart saw Hedley being led to the seat on the Detector dais. A device comprising a large number of tiny, revolving mirrors was hung before the agent's eyes, metallic discs were attached to his head, neck and arms from which wires trailed, and a number of blood samples were taken. These tests, Lockhart knew, were exhaustive, and would uncover any attempt by a witness to fool the Detector. A light metal helmet was placed on- his head and connected to the Detector cabinet, after which the testing instruments were removed. Hedley was told to begin before the test data had been fully analysed by the first cabinet—its indicator lights were still dark —and the agent began to speak.

	Quietly and without dramatics, Hedley began with a résumé of the Agency's machinations on Earth, including their cold-blooded treatment of the Tourists. Then he told of the autopsy of Hargon in Paris, and how this had led them to Portballintrae and eventually here. As he talked the indicator lights flickered and went on, first above the analyser, then the Detector—both of them pale green. There seemed to be no thaw in the feelings of the crowd, Lockhart noticed, which was surprising, because Hedley's sincerity was unmistakable. If anything they had grown more hostile. Lockhart switched his attention to the Judges.

	All the faces registered open hostility—mixed in Harlnida's case, with a look of bitter disappointment.

	It was Harlnida who spoke. Pointing to the indicator lights he said harshly, "The Detector refuses your evidence. The tests show that you have recently introduced the drug Crylthis into your system. Your evidence is therefore worthless."

-

Chapter XXI

	Hedley looked thunderstruck. Lockhart felt the way Hedley looked. Just before the first shock wore off he thought fleetingly that it was some kind of joke being played on them, then his mind became a churning mass of wild questions ...

	One of the questions was asked by Hedley.

	"What's Crylthis," he said angrily, "we've never even heard of the stuff?"

	Harlnida said impatiently, "It is a combination of rare and extremely expensive drugs, the use of which makes it impossible for the Court to decide whether a witness is lying or not. It was developed in secret and its existence—together with the tests which show its presence in the Human system—has become known only recently. You are full of the stuff."

	"There's some mistake," Hedley protested. "I've taken no drugs, none of us have. The machine must be at fault ..." 

	"The testing devices are not at fault."

	Hedley looked wildly about him. "There's something wrong somewhere. There has to be. But wait! There's two more witnesses. Keeler," he said desperately, "Keeler and Fox. Let them give evidence."

	Gripping his knees tightly and breaking off every few seconds to lick his lips, Keeler talked until the machine behind him had finished its analysis of his test samples, then he stopped. The indicator lights were burning pale green.

	Hedley said, "Fox." He sounded sick.

	But with Fox it was the same. Pale green light: evidence refused by the Court.

	Beside Lockhart Kelly sat frozen, her face buried in her hands. He could get no response from her. And Hedley's set must have been switched off because he could not raise the agent either, short of shouting across to him. But what did it matter, he suddenly asked himself. Their plans and hopes had been blasted at the last moment, there was nothing left. They had been stupid to even think that they could get away with it—a handful of Earthmen against an interstellar business empire, and fighting on the enemy's own ground, too. They didn't know enough. Galactic civilisation was too complex. Why fight it any longer ...?

	The sound of his name being called brought Lockhart momentarily out of his despair.

	Hedley was saying, "... You all must know of Doctor Lockhart, and the Grosni incident on Retlone. You must respect him for that, at least." Pleadingly, he went on, "His evidence will not be as detailed as ours—he was not meant to testify—but it should prove that we—"

	"This is a waste of time," the Agency counsellor broke in. "They are obviously guilty of perjury and—"

	"Shut up, you," Hedley said viciously: then, "Lockhart! Come over here, quickly!"

	Lockhart's obedience as he began moving towards the Detector dais was purely involuntary. No slightest flicker of hope lit the stygian blackness of his despair. Not, that was, until he heard what Hedley was saying ...

	"... Somehow this drug has been given to us without our knowledge. But the party responsible must have missed the Doctor. He was separated from us, a mere observer. How else could it have happened? It was given, possibly in our food, and we didn't know that it had been done—"

	"This ignorance," Agency counsel cut in sarcastically, "this pretended ignorance, is deplorable. You could not help but know that the drug Crylthis had been administered. Immediately upon being introduced into the system it produces a marked state of euphoria which lasts up to three hours, after which there are no sensations whatever. But," he ended impatiently, "you know all this already."

	Lockhart was only a few yards from the Detector when the Agency man's words registered. He stopped dead. A great light dawned and he cursed himself bitterly for a blind, stupid, over-trusting fool. Hedley was urging him forward, but he shook his head. The machine would react to him exactly as it had done with the others. Lockhart turned and spoke rapidly to Hedley.

	Hedley listened, swore, then swung round to face the Judges again.

	"The drug was administered last night," he said. With desperate urgency he went on to describe how it had been done. He ended, "Our 'guard' must have been bribed by the Agency ..."

-

	It had been Kerron, of course. Kerron the stern, righteous Captain who, because of his help to the Earth party, had been dismissed from his high position in the Agency. Kerron had been a pitiable sight, yet one that drew admiration more than pity because, though he had been drunk and very, very sorry for himself and had lost most of his self-control, Kerron had never actually asked the Earth party to use their influence on his behalf. He had retained that much pride, at least.

	And now Lockhart realised that it had all been an act. They were not drunk on Kerron's smuggled Earth whisky last night, they had gone into a state of euphoria produced by the Crylthis in their systems—the 'whisky' taste probably being synthetic. They had trusted Kerron because of his actions on the ship—in a stiff-necked, disapproving sort of way he had been their friend, they thought. But Lockhart now knew that Kerron had been acting from the very first.

	Kelly had told him the truth about the Earth party just before the landing on Retlone. He had pretended to be on their side, but while Lockhart had been busy with the Grosni Kerron had sent the ferry-ship to Harla with a report of the Earth party's bid to reach the Galactic Court. And if the Shekkaldor escaped from Retlone Kerron had asked that the ferry-ship rendezvous with him on Karlning with instructions from his superiors. That was the reason for the delay in taking off from the Karlning system.

	Lockhart saw it all clearly now. After the Grosni incident the fantastic popularity of the Earth humans had frightened Kerron, and on his own initiative he had decided to do something about it. The Astrogation officer acting scared of Junior's toy gun so that he could kill Draper and Simpson had been acting on Kerron's orders. The fact that he had only killed two of the Earth party was probably the reason for his later being shot by an Agency man wearing Lockhart's clothes, he should have bagged more. They had all heard that shot, but had dismissed it as an accidental discharge of one of their confiscated weapons. Shortly afterwards Lockhart's clothing, cleaned of green mess of the Grosni ship, had been returned to him.

	But that killing, and Kerron's decision to segregate the Earth party again, had occurred after the arrival of the ferry-ship with instructions from Headquarters. Those instructions must have stated that the Earth people were to be discredited rather than harmed, and the murder of the Astrogator had been towards that end. They had also ordered that Kerron, who had acted sympathetically towards them up until then, continue to do so until he had their trust. Then he would be in a position to really discredit them ...

	Lockhart became aware that the Agency man had risen to reply to Hedley. His tone was scornful.

	"The Captain Kerron you mention left on the Shekkaldor this morning. He is an exceptionally able officer and has never yet been disciplined in any way."

	Lockhart had been expecting something like that.

	"So Kerron isn't here either. Nor are the men responsible for taking those pictures you've shown us." Hedley turned to the Judges "Don't you think," he said with biting sarcasm, "that is just a little bit suspicious?"

	"No," one of the off-planet Judges replied coldly. "The Tourist Class is not encouraged on Harla. There is no time for them here, so it is natural for them to leave after a very short stay. And let me remind you that you have used drugs which inhibit the body functions which indicate to the Detector whether the truth or a lie has been told. Your accusations and suspicions, like your evidence, are worthless."

-

	Hedley began to argue, but Lockhart knew that it was no good. The Detector had the last word here, and anyone caught trying to influence it in any way was practically considered guilty on the spot. There was no chance of bringing Kerron back for Detector questioning, or anyone else who might help—the Agency would make sure of that. And the Crylthis took a long time to disappear from the system. The decision, the sentence, would be given here and not very many minutes from now.

	The Agency, Lockhart knew, were only slightly less powerful than the Administration. If they succeeded here they would emerge stronger, and the Earth case would never again be opened. Lockhart shivered involuntarily.

	The Court, that emotionless and impartial machine, had been effectively disposed of by the Crylthis being in their systems, which left the six human Judges. But these were hostile, even though most of them knew that the Agency was not completely innocent. They, long-lived, highly civilised and, because of this, having a veritable phobia about physical suffering, were so outraged at what appeared to be a cold-blooded murder by Lockhart that even Harlnida seemed to be against them.

	But in the Galactic Federation they were civilised. They did not throw you in gaol, use the cat or anything else likely to cause physical or mental pain—such as awaiting one's execution. Lockhart remembered how, on the Shekkaldor, Kerron had given Hedley a needlegun and told him that it was his right to perform the execution of the Astrogator ...

	The Earth party was in danger of quick, painless and imminent death.

	"But someone must have seen Kerron on his way to our apartments last night," Hedley protested. "And seen how drunk he acted. That would prove part of our evidence—"

	"They may have seen a person resembling Kerron," another Judge cut in. "It proves only your foresight in providing yourselves with this story on the chance that your attempt to trick the Court would fail. The attempt has failed, and this second line of defence convinces no-one." He turned to glance along the five stern faces of his colleagues. "I think we have wasted enough time. Let us agree on the sentence."

	"Wait!"

	Lockhart had not known that he shouted until he saw the Judges turn to look at him. It was an involuntary protest against the cruel injustice of what was happening. It wasn't fair after all they had come through, and done. Desperately, he tried to think of some way out, but his mind was an incoherent, seething whirlpool that circled madly around his personal fear of dying. The eyes of the Judges were boring at him, but he could not think of a single thing that could help them. Oh please, he thought desperately, and he did not know whether it was a prayer or a curse, please don't let this happen ...

-

	Suddenly there seemed to be a pressure on his mind. It was a peculiar sensation. His mind was—rather, it had been forced to become—perfectly calm, but Lockhart knew that he was not responsible for this strange feeling of detachment. Their problem was still of great importance, but now it had become separated from the confusing side-issues of personal fear for himself and for his friends and race. It was simply a problem, and not a very difficult one. As Lockhart solved it he knew that it was he who had found the answer, but the vast, awesome calm which had descended on his mind, allowing him to find it, that had not been him. He had experienced a similar feeling before, however ...

	Thank you, Lockhart thought. And thank you for letting me do it myself. He wondered if it was the same Grosni. Then he swung round to- Hedley.

	"There's a way out of this, but you've got to stall these people until I get back." Seeing Hedley's mouth opening, he added quickly, "I can't tell you about it in case there are Agency men outside who could get there first. And keep the mike of your set switched on. I want to know what's going on in here."

	Only four people made a determined effort to stop him as he sprinted towards the exits. The first he laid on his back with a perfectly clean rugby charge, but the other three ganged up on him, their concerted action making him positive that they were Agency men placed especially among the public. Lockhart was not trained in dirty fighting, but as a doctor he knew all the vital spots. He left them writhing on the aisle behind him and ran on.

	Outside in the corridor leading to the observation gallery, the confusion of the chamber he had left came through the tiny 'speaker in his ear. Gradually order was being restored, one of the Judges was reassuring the Agency counsellor that the murderer Lockhart could not escape the building, who in turn was calling for an immediate sentence. Lockhart stopped as a thought occurred to him. He said, "Hedley, can you hear me ..." and spoke rapidly for several seconds, then continued along the corridor.

	He heard the voice of Hedley asking the Agency man if there had been any wars recently on Earth, and if so would he mind describing them as the testimony of the Earth-humans was not acceptable. Just, the agent added, to satisfy the curiosity of the Judges and public.

	Oh, good man! Lockhart thought.

	Agency counsel seemed to be reading from something as he replied. He said, "There have been no wars of the kind you described in the time which the Agency has been on Earth, some forty of your years. There have been petty squabbles—small, inter-tribal wars—which the Agency acting undercover has been able to curb before more than a few fatalities were suffered. Anything of such an inhuman and catastrophic nature as you have described would be immediately reported to the Administration ..."

	There was more of it, but Lockhart knew that the Agency man had said more than enough. If the Agency could be caught out in that lie, then they would be discredited, too. And knowing the horror most Galactic citizens felt for deliberately inflicted pain of any kind, that discredit would be great indeed.

	Viciously Lockhart curbed his mounting exultation. He was being a little premature.

	When he reached the observation gallery, the stretch of it visible to him was deserted. But it curved away out of sight on both sides of him, following the contour of the building, he knew, until it made full circle. Lockhart turned right and began running again.

	Lockhart ignored the impressive view of Harla spread out on his left, instead he kept his eyes fixed on each section of the gallery curving into sight as he ran. He must have gone half way round the building by now, he thought in mounting anxiety, and still he hadn't seen them. In his 'speaker he heard Hedley appealing for the chance to present a further piece of evidence. This evidence did not have to be tested by the Detector, he stated because it was evidence of ability, and of the emotional depth and richness of a small section of their race ... 

	Fox began playing Malaguena ...

	Lockhart would have laughed if he'd had enough breath to do it. But three minutes later Fox was still playing, and the protests of the Agency counsellor had been curtly silenced.

	Suddenly Lockhart came into sight of them. They were looking out over the city with their backs to him. Breathlessly, Lockhart shouted, "Mrs. Keeler ...!"

-

	Hedley said, "Keeler, you'd better handle this."

	The FBI man moved across to the Detector cabinets and glanced up. Both indicator lights burned a clear amber, signifying that the witness was free of drugs or psychological conditioning, and hence a fit subject for the infallible Detector.

	Naturally he was free of drugs, Lockhart thought; whisky was not, as a rule, given to eight-year-old boys.

	Keeler said, "Son, this is a sort of quiz. It's the most important quiz you were ever in. But if you don't know any of the answers, don't guess at them—that's lying, and it will disqualify you. Now," he went on, taking a deep breath, "this is a triple question.

	"How many World Wars has there been on Earth in the past forty years, how long did each of them last, and what sort of weapons were used in them?"

	Junior giggled. "That's an easy one," he said smugly, and began his answer: While he spoke the indicator lights above him burned a steady amber. Detailed and blood-curdling descriptions of air-raids, submarine warfare, V-2's and flame-throwers—seen on news-reels for the most part, but acceptable as evidence because he knew that they were records of true events—made up the biggest part of the answer.

	The silence in the great room could be felt. In the public section the faces of the crowd had gone a sickly grey. So had those of the Judges, and even the Agency counsellor. Harlnida's face was a shocked horrified mask, but a gleam of triumph had come into his eyes.

	Keeler said, "Now this is a harder one ..."

	When Junior gave the casualty figures of both the World Wars, adding self-importantly that these did not include Korea, the trial was as good as over.

-

	A lot had happened in the two months following the trial. Hedley, Cedric and the Keelers had been returned to Earth, Fox was rapidly becoming the most famous and widely-travelled minstrel ever known, and Lockhart was up to his eyes.

	The things which he could learn in the medical centres of Harla and Vitlimen were awesome, yet he was able to teach them a lot, too. Starting in the near future was a project which Harlnida had asked him to head. A Grosni had died several years back and its body had taken up a stable orbit in the fringe of the Harlan system, preserved intact by the cold of space. Lockhart, with the assistance of an army of mining engineers, was to make a complete study of it so that the living members of the race could profit. He was becoming a famous man now, and as such had been able to secure appointments many times with the Federation's Chief Administrator. But this time he was not seeing Harlnida on business, and the reception he might receive made him uneasy.

	But Harlnida was in one of his rare talkative moods. "I have heard that you intend making the Grosni life-form your specialisation, Doctor," he began. "I approve: in their present highly artificial existence they are helpless against any form of disease or injury, and their race—which has much of value in its philosophy—will die out unless something is done for them. But I hope your decision is not based solely upon gratitude ..."

	He was talking about the trial, when a Grosni had touched Lock-hart's mind at the most critical point, calming it and allowing him to solve their problem. It had been the first time that anything like that had happened—previously it was thought that their telepathy did not extend beyond the hulls of their ships—and the occurrence had impressed Harlnida very much.

	"No," Lockhart replied, a little impatiently. He had told Harlnida about his intended specialisation weeks ago.

	"I'm glad," Harlnida said, then thoughtfully. "You belong to an unusual race, Doctor. When you discover the Interstellar Drive for yourselves, I hope you don't give the Federation an inferiority complex"

	"Er, the reason I came," Lockhart interrupted with a gentle reminder. He felt his ears getting red.

	"Oh, of course," Harlnida said apologetically. He picked Lockhart's note from the desk. His mouth quirked faintly, then he became business-like again.

	"On Harla," he said," the marriage forrnalities are quite simple ..."

The End