impression that I am an Earthman." A flicker of something akin to distaste passed over his singularly immobile face.

"I'd like to see what you do look like," said Dorwin, suddenly entering into the eerie conversation.

Something like a sigh escaped the intruder. Then he said, "Very well. It is important that you believe me, so—" His hands went to the top of his scalp and deliberately he peeled the life-like mask slowly from the hidden features of his thoroughly Martian face!

It was a very odd face—not at all human. It reminded Bezdek a little of an immutably sad Bassett Hound he kept in his Hollywood kennel. It made Dorwin think of his mother-in-law. It was not a frightening face and the single eye in the center of the forehead held them with its mournful regard, held them, held them ...

When they were thoroughly under its hypnotic spell the Martian began to speak softly ...

Ty Falter was slow in waking up. But when he realized that he was lying there in the corridor he came to with a start. If Bezdek ever found out about this he'd be cooked as far as Hollywood went!

He got to his feet, his unsteadiness helped not at all by the fact that the train chose that moment to start with a jerk. He grabbed at the wall as a meteor flashed through the dark of the Kansas night outside the window.

Funny, he thought, the damned thing was going up, not down. But he forgot about the meteor as he heard the voices coming from the stateroom he was being paid to guard. He reeled over to the partly opened door and listened.

Bezdek was talking volubly, enthusiastically as he did when he spoke of the actual making of a picture. "... so we'll only have to reshoot a few sequences, Dorwin. The cost will be nothing compared to the returns. Think of it! Our space-pilot hero crashes on Venus. He has to fight horrible slimy swamp creatures—we can make them look like crocodiles with six or eight legs—to reach the mountaintop where the girl is hiding ..."

He paused and Dorwin said gravely, "I'm glad, since these space operas seem to be necessary, that you have decided to locate them on a real planet like Venus rather than a fictitious one like Mars. If minority pressure groups force us to use fantasy then it is as well to stay as credible as possible."

"Right, Dorwin! Right on the nose!" cried Bezdek. "And 

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