_Horray for you. Popeek is a damned crime and that Walton criminal ought to be put away and we ought to kill those greenskins up there before they kill us. We gotta have room to live._ _Kill them before they kill us._ Walton snickered. All the old hysterias, the old panic reactions, come boiling up again in times of stress. He looked at his hand. It was perfectly steady, even though his wrist watch told him Fred would be here in just a few minutes. A week ago, a situation like this would have had him gobbling benzolurethrin as fast as he could unwrap the lozenges. The ghostly presence of FitzMaugham seemed to hover in the room. _The ends justify the means_, Walton told himself grimly, as he waited for his brother to arrive. * * * * * Fred was dressed completely in black, from his stylish neo-Victorian waistcoat and the bit of ribbon at his throat to the mirror-bright leather pumps on his feet. The splendor of his clothing was curiously at odds with the coarseness of his features and the stockiness of his body. He walked into Walton's office at the stroke of 1100 and sighed deeply--the sigh of a man about to take permanent possession. "Good morning, Roy. I'm on time, as always." "And looking radiant, my dear brother." Walton gestured appreciatively at Fred's clothes. "It's been a long time since I've seen you in anything but your lab smock." "I gave notice at the lab yesterday, night after I spoke to you. I'm no longer an employee of Popeek. And I felt I should dress with the dignity suitable to my new rank." He grinned buoyantly. "Well, ready to turn over the orb and scepter, Roy?" "Not exactly," Walton said. "But--" "But I promised you I'd resign in your favor today, Fred. I don't think I ever used those words, but I certainly implied it, didn't I?" "Of course you did. You told me to come here at 1100 and you'd arrange the transfer." Walton nodded. "Exactly so." He waited a long moment and then said quietly, "I lied, Fred." He had chosen the words carefully, for maximum impact. He had not chosen wrongly. For a brief instant Fred's face was very pale against the blackness of his garb. Total disbelief flickered across his eyes and mouth. Walton had considered his brother's mental picture of him--the elder brother, virtuous, devoted to hard work, kind to animals, and just a little soft in the head. Also, extremely honest. Fred hadn't expected Walton to be lying. And the calm admission stunned him. "You're not planning to go through with it, then?" Fred asked in a dead voice. "No." "You realize what this means in terms of the serum, don't you? The moment I get out of here and transmit your refusal to my employers, they'll begin wholesale manufacture and distribution of the Lamarre serum. The publicity won't be good, Roy. Nor the result." "You won't get out of here," Walton said.