"His belt!" said Sommers. His gun swiveled to point at Horitz. "I'm sorry, Phil. Drop your gun."

Horitz dropped it, and Walsh scooped it up.

"Then he went into his stateroom and locked the door," said the steward excitedly, "and about twenty after seven he came out again, looking for all the world as if he'd just waked up. I went into the room, being a little curious, and looked around to see if I could see the papers, or anything. I didn't see the papers, but there was scraps of burnt paper and ashes all around the waste chute. It looked to me as if he burnt them up."

Horitz felt numb. The words he was hearing, incredibly, awoke echoes of memory ... a memory that had not been there an instant before.

"Burned them!" said the girl, her eyes wide. "But why!"

Sommers was speaking rapidly into his wrist transceiver, and a few moments later the ship's doctor bustled in, carrying his bag.

"Give your belt to Dr. Evans, Phil," said Sommers.

This is crazy, thought Horitz to himself. I'm dreaming. He took off the thin rawhide band he wore about his waist and handed it over to the doctor. I remember his face, he thought. His purple face as I.... But I didn't. I couldn't have!

The doctor took the belt, casting a sharp glance at Horitz, and held it up to the light in his gloved hands. He took a bulky instrument from his bag, clipped a section of the belt into its base and peered at it through the eyepieces. He looked up after a moment and nodded.

"Traces of human skin," he said. "This is undoubtedly the instrument which was used to kill Professor Thomasson."

"I think I understand now," said Dr. Ilyanov slowly, staring straight ahead of her. "We forgot one person who had a motive ... Oscar! He didn't want us to reach the stars...."

She turned until her wide gaze rested on Horitz's face. "And you shook hands with him!" she said.

The nightmare boiled up in Horitz's head. Impossible things, memories from nowhere, battled with his sanity: the silent decks, the slow, dreamlike progress upward into starlight ... and the hideous purple face, staring impersonally into his.

Raging, his mind retreated, flung itself away from the thing that was hurting it. He felt his body in 

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