She said, "While you're waiting, General, you might like to read the latest facsimile. Or have you already seen it?" I shook my head. "I saw the 1100 fac-report, but I missed this one." She handed it to me and returned to her desk. There was just the slightest suggestion of a rolling movement in her walk, not at all unpleasant. When I looked down at the facsimile sheet, the headline screamed silently up at me. I swiveled my eyes over at the secretary, but she was working her recordo-writer, her fingers moving rapidly, mechanically. The headline read: ALIEN INVADER DISCOVERED! The story that followed reported that two Security Police guards had intercepted someone who looked like and was dressed like an Earthman, trying to enter the Senate at 1109 hours that morning. A discrepancy had been discovered during the routine ID card check and the imposter had tried to escape. The guards had opened fire at close range, scoring two direct hits. While the account was obviously censored, it intimated that a full report to be released later by Security Police Headquarters would be almost unbelievable. It hinted that the hideous mess revealed when the guards' weapons had ripped through the surprisingly soft body armor of the impostor positively confirmed the fact that the individual was an enemy alien. Before I could read any further, there was a muted tone from the direction of the desk. The secretary acknowledged the signal, spoke several words which I couldn't hear, then looked at me. She said, "You may go in now, General Spicer." I placed the facsimile sheet on her desk and waited while she activated the circuit, which would release the catch on her side of the door. _Who had it been? There had been four of us. Volunteers. We had been selected, briefed and trained separately. We had been housed separately during the mental and physical tortures of the surgical and the psych labs. The ship which had brought us to Earth had released us at separate points above the Earth capital. Only our ultimate goal was the same. But now there was one less of us to accomplish that goal! And we had lost the element of surprise._ The door clicked twice and swung open. I stepped through, just in time to see the rotund shape of Senator Chambers go out a private exit on the far side of the room. Both doors closed at almost the same moment and I stood alone before the Secretary of Defense for the planet Earth. The secretary sat behind a desk on the far side of the room. He was a powerful man, in keeping with the importance of the job he filled. But the huge memory bank which he relied upon and which filled the entire wall behind his desk seemed to dwarf him. Without looking up immediately, Secretary Bartlett carefully rewound a tape he had been referring to and fed it back into the open mouth of the memory unit. * * * * *