all that way, and then just blast him. Did you pass them on to Holmer before the Earthmen caught you?"

Birrel felt blood running down his face, and he felt a hate and rage that he had never suspected he could experience. He started to get up, and the Irrians with the weapons across the room pointed their cylinders at him. He didn't want to die, any sooner than he had to. He sat down again.

"The men of Ruun are brave," said Vannevan, mockingly. "Now will you tell me—"

He stopped suddenly. An expression of interest and amazement crossed his face. He reached out his hand, toward Birrel's eyes.

Birrel recoiled—but Vannevan's hand swiped across his forehead, across his eyebrows. Then Vannevan uttered an incredulous exclamation.

"This isn't a man of Ruun at all. He's an Earthman!"

Birrel realized what had happened. The blow, the blood streaming down his face, had effectively ruined the careful work of Connor's make-up experts.

Before he could resist, Vannevan rubbed a handkerchief across his face. Birrel, a little dazed and half-blinded by the blood in his eyes, struck out savagely but hit nothing.

Kara's voice reached him. "Rett, you can't be—" Her voice trailed away, and then it came on a different note. "But you're not Rett. He's right, you're an Earthman. Where's Rett?"

Birrel got his eyes open, and now he could see her face, and Holmer's, and the pallor of shocked surprise on both.

He felt a queer guilt. There was no reason for it, they were spies and he was a counter-spy defending his country, defending Earth, but he couldn't rid himself of the feeling.

"Yes," said Vannevan fiercely, "where is Rett? Where's the man you've been impersonating?"

Birrel looked at him and said nothing.

One of the Irrians came to Vannevan's side and spoke so rapidly that Birrel could not follow it.

Vannevan said somberly to him, "Your people—the Earth people—have this Rett, don't they? They captured him, didn't they?"

That was so obvious that there was no use denying it. "They did," said Birrel.

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