the intruder, "as will the others aboard this train. I can release them whenever you agree that my mission is to be taken seriously."

"All right," said Bezdek, whose mind was nothing if not acrobatic. "Suppose you are from Mars. Tell me why your people object to our movies. Surely they aren't seeing them on Mars?"

"No. But your Earthmen will reach our planet soon and your opinion of us will be shaped in some degree by these movies they have seen. And since the relationships of the near-future are of vital import to us now we must not be represented as other than we are. Such misconceptions could breed interplanetary war." He shuddered.

"I think you're crazy!" said Bezdek. He turned to the banker, who was again staring out the window.

"There's something out there—look," said Dorwin.

"That is our ship," the intruder told them blandly. "That is why we stopped the train here. It is the only flat area sufficiently unsettled for our landing and departure without detection. We must return at once or lose perihelion."

"Let me see," said Bezdek. He peered through the window. There was something out there—something black and vague and shaped like an immense turtle with jagged projections. He tried to tell himself he was seeing things, failed.

"Amazing!" said E. Carter Dorwin. "It's utterly amazing!"

"Incredible is the word for it," Bezdek said wearily. He faced the intruder, said bluntly, "Very well, you say you're from Mars. And I say to your face that you aren't!"

"You seem remarkably sure, Mr. Bezdek."

"And why not?" The movie-maker was in his element now, delivering the clincher in an argument. "Our scientists have proved conclusively that Earthmen cannot exist on Mars without space-suits. You say you're a Martian. Yet you look like one of us. So if you can live on Mars, how can you live in our atmosphere without a space-suit of some sort? There's one for you to answer!" He chortled.

"But I am wearing protection—a protective suit arranged to give the impression that I am an Earthman." A flicker of something akin to distaste passed over his singularly immobile face.

"I'd like to see what you do look like," said Dorwin, suddenly entering into the eerie conversation.

Something like a sigh escaped the intruder. Then he said, "Very well. It is important that you believe me, so—" His hands went to the top of his scalp and deliberately he peeled the life-like mask slowly from the hidden features of his thoroughly Martian face!

It was a very odd face—not at all human. It reminded Bezdek a little of an immutably sad Bassett Hound he kept in his Hollywood kennel. It made Dorwin think of his mother-in-law. It was not a frightening face and the single eye in the center of the forehead held them with its mournful regard, held them, held them ...

When they were thoroughly under its hypnotic spell the Martian began to speak softly ...

Ty Falter was slow in waking up. But when he realized that he was lying there in the corridor he came to with a start. If Bezdek ever found out about this he'd be cooked as far as Hollywood went!

He got to his feet, his unsteadiness helped not at all by the fact that the train chose that moment to start with a jerk. He grabbed at the wall as a meteor flashed through the dark of the Kansas night outside the window.

Funny, he thought, the damned thing was going up, not down. But he forgot about the meteor as he heard the voices coming from the stateroom he was being paid to guard. He reeled over to the partly opened door and listened.

Bezdek was talking volubly, enthusiastically as he did when he spoke of the actual making of a picture. "... so we'll only have to reshoot a few sequences, Dorwin. The cost will be nothing compared to the returns. Think of it! Our space-pilot hero crashes on Venus. He has to fight horrible slimy swamp creatures—we can make them look like crocodiles with six or eight legs—to reach the