The three aliens watched them through bulging eyes and conferred in a series of chirps and clicks.

"What are they saying?" Nick demanded, a bit confused by the turn events were taking. They weren't treating the girl in too friendly a fashion.

"That you're an Exploiter, and because of that damned jacket that I joined the Exploiters too. If only we could have reached Klev first!"

She broke into the Martians' discussion. "Mel nikko ne cho ke twa Klev."

The Martians focused their attention on her, their voices taking on a note of uncertainty. She spoke to the bluish one at length, and at last he shook his head dubiously, making sweeping gestures to indicate movement.

"We'd better go," Susan said dully.

"Just where do you stand with these things?" Nick asked anxiously as they walked. It was the most urgent question of the moment.

"I don't quite know any more." Her voice betrayed her uncertainty. "They liked Dad and me at first, and when we came back from Earth the second time many of them even came out into the sunlight to meet us. But then the Exploiters came. It was only because they blasted the Trailblazer and opened fire on Dad and me too that the Martians didn't kill us right then."

"Then they weren't hostile at first? Weren't they plotting a war on Earth?"

"Of course not." Her tone was scathing. "They were just friendly and sick and dispirited and dying. They couldn't even live on Earth."

"Then why did your father organize the Mec?"

Susan halted in mid-stride and her stinging two-handed slaps left angry marks across his face.

"Say anything like that again and I'll scratch your eyes out!" she spat.

"But your father—"

"He did not!" she snapped. "What he told Gerald Harmon was—"

"Harmon?"

One of the Martians clucked impatiently and motioned them to move along.

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