"What do you think would happen if we showed ourselves and set down a ship?" she asked curtly. "Most of the planets would be paralyzed with terror! They'd consider us suspect and they would hate us because we were more advanced. I do what I can. I try to convince a few. And when I do, they usually try to help." She looked at him again and her face was sheer hate. "Patriotic men, Martin--men that you've helped to slaughter!" For a fraction of a second, she looked like she was going to break down. Then her face hardened again. Her voice was husky. "I've manned the barricades on a thousand different planets, Martin! I've fought the Thuscans for as long as I can remember. Sometimes I've succeeded, more often I've failed. And when I've failed, I've had to run away." Her voice changed to steel. "But I'm not running anymore. If I lose, I'm staying here." "You picked the wrong person to give a speech to," Stan said coldly. He started for the door and then stopped. "You said I was an Aurelian, a human being. What did you mean by that?" "You were born in this city 25 years ago," she said in a low voice. "You worked here, your family lived here. You had a mother and a brother named Larry. You were ... exceptional. All the indications are, that you would have made a great man. You loved the world and the people in it. When you were seventeen, you were kidnapped by the Thuscans and conditioned to what you are now. They intentionally made you lose your memory, so that you would have no memories and no will--no will but theirs." "I don't believe you," he said heavily. "You don't want to." She paused. "You better leave, Martin. You better go back to the marionette makers and the string pullers." He took one last look, realizing that something inside him was struggling to give the girl comfort, to say something that might help her. Then he shrugged and walked out the door. He was two blocks away before he realized that both he and the girl could have killed each other at almost any time. But neither of them had made any attempt to. CHAPTER X He was two men, after the meeting with the girl, Stanley Martin, the loyal Thuscan agent who continued to mastermind the betrayal of a world. And Stanley Martin, the man who wondered at and was repelled by his own action. The man to whom the city of Chicago was strangely familiar. The man who distrusted Tanner and who knew there was a reason for it. The man in whose mind small bits of memory kept bobbing to the surface, like a ship that was breaking up beneath the sea and planks and spars kept rising to the top. He also knew that that way lay ... madness. Two minds could not continue to dwell in the same body. He could not continually war with himself. The weaker, the fainter of the two would have to die. Which meant that the person who had brought his weaker memory to the surface would have to die. Avis was slated for death.