Pudgy's voice rose almost to a scream. "It's the truth! You made me tell you, now I've done it, and you won't believe me! There's a bunch of them in it, I don't know how many. I know that besides Fairlie, there's a couple of assistant Evacuation Marshals in other countries and some minor officials and some others I don't know. I've seen them, up near New York. It's where they've got Lee Kendrick. They'd kill me for telling, and now I've told and you won't believe--" Martha said uncertainly, "Oh, Jay, maybe he is telling the truth--maybe that's where Lee is!" Wales exclaimed, "Don't you see what a lie it is? John Fairlie is one of the men charged with evacuating all the people off Earth--why would he and other Evacuation officials want to trick millions into staying here?" "Because they don't want them on Mars, because they think they're scum and ought to be left on Earth!" Pudgy cried. "I heard them talk, didn't I? Talk about how hard it's going to be for years on Mars with too many people there, already. And about how it'd be better for everyone if a lot of ignorant crumb-bums and their families weren't taken to Mars to be a load on everyone else. Didn't I hear them--" Wales' rage at their prisoner receded, swept away by an icy tide of terrible doubt that despite himself was rising now in his mind. * * * * * He remembered things, now. He remembered Fairlie's grim face as he'd spoken broodingly of how hard a life it would be on Mars, with every one of Earth's millions there. He remembered the bitterly contemptuous way in which Fairlie--and Bliss and Chaumez and Holst--had spoken of the looters, the ignorant resisters, the crazy folk, whom it would be difficult to evacuate from Earth. "Only fanatics would want to trap millions on Earth--" He, Wales, had said that. He'd been thinking then of the Brotherhood. But suppose there were other and more terrible fanatics? Fanatics who ruthlessly decided that the more backward and ignorant of Earth's millions would only be a burden in the hard years ahead, on Mars--and who secretly planned to trick those millions into staying until it was too late? Such things had been planned and done before, by egotistical, self-appointed guardians of the public interest! And if--_if_ this was the truth, it explained why he, Wales, had been followed, it explained why Fairlie had made him suspect the Brotherhood, it explained many things-- _Halle-lu-jah!_ roared the chorus of howling voices, out in the streets. And the ruddy, throbbing light increased in intensity suddenly. "Jay!" cried Martha, in tones of horror. He whirled around. The front of the hardware store was on fire, with flames writhing around the edges of the windows, outside. "You've got us killed!" sobbed Pudgy. Wales, his thoughts now a chaos, realized that he dared delay no longer. He picked up the Venn gun, and then yanked their prisoner to his feet. "Come on, Martha," he said. "Out that back window."