Fitzgerald, heading unerringly toward the open passenger shaft—into it!

Browne leaped to a console and punched the roof-lock button. A split second later we heard a riveting machine burst of what was obviously Centaurian profanity coming down the shaft as the alien found the exit closed. Browne's fingers darted on the console, locking all the upstairs windows.

"Browne," I said, "what good will that do? If we do manage to corner him, just how long do you think we can stand up against him? With his speed he could evade us until doomsday, to say nothing about beating our brains out while we tried to land one, solid punch!"

Fitzgerald said, "If we can keep him on the run, maybe he'll get tired."

"Yeah, maybe," I said. "What if that's his normal speed? And who's likely to get tired first? I'm dragging as of now."

"Well," Fitzgerald said, "we could get more people in and go at him in shifts—or, well, what about tear gas or an anesthetic gas or—"

"Now, wait!" Browne snapped, unquestionably seizing command. "I'll admit I started him on the run just now. Perhaps it was the wrong approach. After all, he's done nothing wrong as far as we know. I—I guess all of us—leaped to the illogical conclusion that he's out for no good just because he's an alien. Sure, he's after something or he wouldn't be going from door to door posing as a census taker. The way you talk, Jim, would seem to indicate you're not curious. Well, I am, and I'm going to do everything in my power to find out what he's after.

"We've got to make him tell us. We can't deduce anything from the data we have now. Sure, we know he has what you, Jim, say look like bona fide credentials from the Census Bureau, but we also have right here I. D. papers or something which show he's apparently from Alpha Centauri. We know he speaks our language perfectly; ergo he either learned it here first-hand or acquired it from someone else who had learned it here.

"Whatever he's after, his approach certainly varies. He asked you a lot of questions, Fitz, but, Jim, practically all he did in your house was tell you your wife was pregnant with quintuplets. And whatever his approach has been, he never seems to finish whatever he comes to do. Something about you two—and from what you two have said, Kozulak and Wohl—seems to have a most peculiar effect on him; you say he's staggered out of every house he's entered only to recover again in a matter of 

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