"We can teach you a fair bit of the language," Connor said. "Enough so that you won't be instantly recognized as a fake. You'd soon be found out—but by then we'd be jumping on them."

Birrel stared, wondering if the strain of this hadn't been too much for the man. "You can teach me some of that other-world language?"

Connor said, "Grossman can. He is, in case you don't know, one of the world's greatest philologists. He was called in on this weeks ago. Using that spoken commentary on the film-viewer, that voice that each time described a specific pictured scene, he worked away relating words and pictures until he built up the whole language. It's rough yet—but he's got a vocabulary of a couple thousand words, a set of grammar-rules, and—above all—an accurate reproduction of accent and pronunciation, in that recorded voice. Enough, with luck, to get you by for a little time with the others. That should be time enough for us."

Garlock interrupted, saying heatedly to Connor, "Look at his face! I tell you, you're giving this to him too fast, you can't throw it at him like this."

Connor ignored the protest. He sat down again at the desk, and his bleak eyes held on Birrel's face.

"This is how it stands. Where they came from, what that place is like, we haven't a glimmering. How many of them there are on Earth, we don't know either. But one man couldn't come alone. So there are others. All right."

He bent forward, his harsh voice beating at Birrel. "We make you look like that dead man. We have Grossman cram you with that language till you can get by. Then we stick you in jail. We announce that an unidentified spy was caught near an atomic installation, weeks ago, and that we're still holding him for questioning. We let that out in the newspapers."

"And then?"

Connor said, "The others—they'll be wondering what happened to their boy. He was alone on that job, we're sure of that. When they hear he's in prison, they'll surely try to contact him—you."

"What makes you so sure they will?"

"Because," Connor said slowly, "they have to. This is a secret operation. They must prevent our finding out who our prisoner is, finding out that he's from outside Earth."

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