Eyes swung toward him. The judge broke into an evil grin. "That's right." "But you can't really convict me until you've considered carefully any statement I make in my own defense. Isn't that right?" The judge looked uncomfortable. "If you've got something to say, go ahead and say it." "I've got just one statement to make. Short and sweet. But you'd better listen to it, and think it out carefully before you decide that you really want to convict me." He paused, and glanced slyly at the judge. "You don't think much of those who tell the truth, it seems. Well, put _this_ statement in your record, then." His voice was loud and clear in the still room. "_All Earthmen are absolutely incapable of telling the truth._" Puzzled frowns appeared on the jury's faces. One or two exchanged startled glances, and the room was still as death. The judge stared at him, and then at Meyerhoff, then back. "But you"--he stammered. "You're"--He stopped in mid-sentence, his jaw sagging. One of the jurymen let out a little squeak, and fainted dead away. It took, all in all, about ten seconds for the statement to soak in. And then pandemonium broke loose in the courtroom. * * * * * "Really," said Harry Zeckler loftily, "it was so obvious I'm amazed that it didn't occur to me first thing." He settled himself down comfortably in the control cabin of the Interplanetary Rocket and grinned at the outline of Altair IV looming larger in the view screen. Paul Meyerhoff stared stonily at the controls, his lips compressed angrily. "You might at least have told me what you were planning." "And take the chance of being overheard? Don't be silly. It had to come as a bombshell. I had to establish myself as a liar--the prize liar of them all, but I had to tell the sort of lie that they simply could not cope with. Something that would throw them into such utter confusion that they wouldn't _dare_ convict me." He grinned impishly at Meyerhoff. "The paradox of Epimenides the Cretan. It really stopped them cold. They _knew_ I was an Earthmen, which meant that my statement that Earthmen were liars was a lie, which meant that maybe I wasn't a liar, in which case--oh, it was tailor-made." "It sure was." Meyerhoff's voice was a snarl. "Well, it made me out a liar in a class they couldn't approach, didn't it?" Meyerhoff's face was purple with anger. "Oh, indeed it did! And it put _all_ Earthmen in exactly the same class, too." "So what's honor among thieves? I got off, didn't I?" Meyerhoff turned on him fiercely. "Oh, you got off just fine. You scared the living daylights out of them. And in an eon of lying they never have run up against a short-circuit like that. You've also completely botched any hope of ever setting up a trading alliance with Altair I, and that includes uranium, too. Smart people don't gamble with loaded dice. You scared them so badly they don't want anything to do with us."