"I realize that you probably read in my mind that my wife and I are expecting quintuplets, but how did you know the rest—about the division of sexes—or did you guess?"

"I'll have to explain," he said; then hesitated, seeming to debate mentally with himself as to whether he should go on. Suddenly he started to talk so fast that the words nearly blurred into unrecognizability, like a 45 rpm record at 78.

"I am Hirm Sulay of Alpha Centauri Five," he burst. "My people have warred with the race of Beta Centauri Three for fifty of your years. We secretly bring our children here to protect them from sporadic bombing, insuring their upbringing through placing them in orphanages or directly into homes."

A horrible suspicion flamed in my mind. I'd tried vainly to account for the multiple birth we were expecting. I cried at him: "Then my wife—" and he said,

"She will have twin girls, Doc Gardiner tells me. We had planned to have three newborn boys ready in the delivery room."

"Then Doc Gardiner—"

"He and his staff are all of my race," Hirm Sulay said. "I see how your mind leaped when I said 'newborn boys.' Your UFO sightings frequently describe a 'mother' ship. Considering the gravid women aboard I'd say the description is quite apt."

For some reason anger flared in me, and I rushed at him. He blurred and went around me and out the way I'd come. I raced after him and heard Fitzgerald cry, "Oh, no you don't!" and machine-gun footfalls were doubling back toward me.

I hurried on and he flashed at and by me, then turned back as he came to a door Browne had remotely locked. Back at and past me again. I gave chase.

Fitzgerald yelled, "He's slowing down, Jim. He's tiring!"

And the doors kept closing under Browne's nimble fingering at the console down below. Suddenly the area was cut down to the passenger shaft foyer, and the three of us were weaving about, like two tackles after the fastest fullback of all time. I leaped forward and actually laid a hand on the alien for a split second, just enough to topple him off balance so that Fitzgerald, charging in, managed to bump him successfully into the shaft. A surprised cry came ringing back up the shaft; Browne had obviously cut the lift's power supply completely.

Browne's voice came ringing up: 

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