in ships and people from other worlds."

Connor winced. "Don't. It's like hearing a playback of what I said to Blount. Listen. We had the two most qualified biologists in the country check that body. They agree utterly. It's non-terrestrial."

Birrel opened his mouth to say something and then shut it. He had nothing more to say.

He faced the enormity of an impossible fact, just as these men had had to face it. A man, a visitor, a secret visitor, from another world. In this hard, matter-of-fact office, it seemed impossible, like a story read and thrown away, like a crazy movie you laughed at as you went out. The George Washington Bridge was only a few miles away, and tomorrow the Giants played the Pirates, and Friday was payday, and a man had come from another world.

"But from where?" Birrel whispered, finally. "And why?"

Connor sighed heavily. "Now we're getting somewhere. I know how hard it is to take. Every morning I wake up, I think at first it was just a wild dream—" He broke off, then said harshly, "From where? We don't know, haven't an idea. The sky is full of worlds. Take your pick."

A nightmare kaleidoscope of all the stars and planets of the universe rushed through Birrel's head. The sky is full of worlds. Yes. He'd never quite realized it before.

"As to why, there's no doubt at all," Connor was saying. "The man was killed near one of the most heavily guarded atomic weapon depots we have. He was killed trying to escape. He was a spy."

"A spy, for—" Birrel's voice trailed away.

"That's right, Birrel. For someplace else, someplace not on Earth."

Garlock spoke up to Connor, interrupting. "You're giving it to him too fast, John. It took us weeks, and yet you haul him in and hit him in the face with the whole picture. More time—"

"I'm running this, and we haven't got more time," Connor said roughly.

Birrel hardly heard them. He felt as though an earthquake had rocked his mind, had shaken up all his preconceived ideas, all the bases of his thinking for a lifetime.

"But," he said slowly to Connor, "a spy from someplace outside, from another world—does that mean danger? A threat, out there?"

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