"My Lord--" the colonel all but whispered--"what shall we do?" "Return." The soldier's eyes faltered. "Abort the mission!" "I hoped I might persuade you." "Another would merely follow--!" "And them." "But--duty!" "To whom is duty?" A head appeared in the round mouth of the tunnel. Learned, the journalist, grinned like an imp. "Nasty crawl," he yelled. "Hope they've got that thing well insulated. Otherwise--I'm unsexed--or hotter than radium myself!" He saw the stranger, and halfway down on the ladder stood still. His eyes, ordinarily shrewd and compassionate, showed first a little amazement--and then twinkled. "A ringer! You would pull one like that, colonel! The American press wants to know who he is!" Learned chuckled and dropped to the metal floor. Strode the two steps forward. Gave his name. Held out his hand. Explained himself. "You're a physicist, I take it?" "My name is Chris." The dark eyes were luminous and kind. "Chris who?" The colonel took the journalist's arm in a hand like steel and whispered. Learned, also, grew pale. He stared first at the colonel and then, uneasily, he eyed the stranger. Twice, the gleam of sardonic doubt shone. And twice, with all his will and concentration, he endeavored to make some satirical reply: to say, skeptically, that this would be the greatest interview in two millenniums. Or to ask how things were in the Blue Up Yonder. He failed. He--too--abruptly knew. The resources of his training abandoned him--left but the residue of naked personality. His tongue circled his lips. He gave the stranger another uncertain glance, a hopeful glance--and suddenly, on the impulse, took out his cigarettes and offered them. Chris shook his head. "Thanks, Learned." "Do you mind--" "Of course not." Now the journalist and the colonel shakily fumbled with cigarettes and the wavering flame of a match. Chris had turned. He was looking expectantly toward the narrow door that led to the radar room and from it, presently, Sopho came. "Thought I'd run a counter through the tunnel," he began. "Check things." He saw Chris. "Hello! Didn't realize I hadn't met the ship's full complement." The colonel and the reporter watched. "My name is Chris, doctor." "Can't place you. The Chicago Group, perhaps. I didn't meet them all." "No." "Army, then? White House? OSS? I'm a physicist. Sopho's the name." "This man," said Learned, in a hoarse, uneven voice his ears had never heard before, "comes from--another place." He told the physicist. Dr. Sopho's right thumb and forefinger touched his small beard. Across the back of his hand--tanned to leather by his long residence in the desert--skin pimpled and the reddish hairs rose. The tiny phenomenon passed--passed like the eddy of air that dimples still water and disappears. His great head with the thin nose and the straight, exaggerate brow bent forward attentively. He was searching the stranger for obvious signs of madness. It became apparent that he found none.