"I can do nothing. If this is false, you can prove it simply enough. If it is true ... but why should it be true? You are a smart man, Wanniston. You can get anything you want without murder. That should be considered. I'll help, Wanniston, but remember, as emissary of the Galactic Ones, I must not interfere." "Removed like a common criminal. I warn you, Lieutenant Alfred, that this is utterly false and I shall have compensation. I am both capable and willing to make you and all others pay for this outrage." "You'll submit to a lie-detector test?" "Certainly. I'll take it. I have committed no crime. I have murdered no one!" Wanniston looked at Gerd Lel Rayne. Gerd shrugged. Wanniston's intellect was most certainly capable of telling the lie detector a lie and making the insensate machine believe it true. Gerd knew that Wanniston knew that--and Wanniston knew that Gerd knew it also. But Gerd was intelligent enough to know that Wanniston was smart enough to avoid murder or running afoul of any man-made law. Any killing would have come up immediately, and the evidence would be natural and honesty a matter of self-defense. Wanniston was no fool. They brought in the lie detector and Wanniston slipped the headset on, and grasped the handles. The lieutenant said: "John Wanniston, did you murder Peter Wilks?" * * * * * Wanniston started. _Wilks!_ The magnitude of the plot amazed him. It was as nasty a frame as he could imagine. He knew that it would be as air-tight as the machinations of sixteen men could make it--and he wondered whether the operations of seventeen men might not be more like the truth. Wilks was ruined; had little to live for and knew it. He--and the rest--a sacrifice was not too unquestionable. Their crime--justified by themselves in the thought that better it be one of them than all of them. Under suspicion himself, any moves he made would be viewed with distrust by the human race, who had cause to know him as the most hated man on earth. Any jury, hearing of his legal trickery, knowing and hearing the account of his masterful moves in business, which gained him fortune upon fortune as other men fell under his steam-roller tactics. Any jury. It was their crime. Yes. But if, as, and when the truth came out truth? That was another angle and Wanniston cursed himself for not thinking with all of his 375 I.Q. The sixteen did not do it. Wilks must have framed murder out of suicide. Without letting any of the others know! For the lie detector would be used on each witness. Even Gerd. For he had been apprehended in Gerd Lel Rayne's home. And Gerd would be asked the standard questions. Foolish, they were; utterly and stupidly foolish. They asked your name; they asked the identity of the suspected one; and-- _They asked if the suspected one might be able to outwit a lie detector._ And Gerd Lel Rayne's answer would be a ringing, clear, and damning "Yes!"