"Now," he said, "you're going to show me the way out of here or I'll twist this off, see?"

"But I mustn't," she said.

Carroll smiled sourly.

"Rhine," he said pointedly, "you've lost your home right now. From here on in you are on the outside of your camp. Your best bet is to throw in with me and at least stay alive."

"I'll never help you."

"Fair enough," he said. "For I didn't help you. But this will let you know that Terrans have an attitude known as 'gratitude' which to your alien concept is both foolhardy and decadent. But no Terran, no matter how much he hated his enemy, would abandon to them one of their own that gave him help. We protect our friends, Rhine."

"Then we must hurry," she breathed. "But where can we go?"

"Where?" he echoed cheerfully. "We've got the whole world before us!"

"But you must hide as well," she said simply. "Because my friends will be seeking you in earnest, now."

Carroll nodded as he caught the implication. "I shall return to my friends," he stated flatly, "when I have evidence enough to prove myself. Then your people can go ahead and kill me if they can—but my world will be protected. Until I can convince them, I am the slender reed upon which depends the future of Sol. And," he added bitterly, "against what?"

"That I will never tell you," she said. "But we must hurry!"

It was five days later that Carroll's roadster—stolen from the alien's garage—arrived before a summer home in Wisconsin. Twenty miles from the nearest town of consequence it was set in a woodsy area near one of many small lakes.

"Here," he said happily, "we can hide—and we can live—and we can work!"

Pollard slowly shook hands.

"Carroll again?" asked Majors.

The psychologist nodded wearily. "For some time he has been working quietly, though with deep preoccupation, which I suppose is normal. Whether he has been pondering over the absence of that black limousine and its mythically inimical occupants, I cannot say."

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