"Positive!" said Brian Shaughnessey stubbornly. "It was Dirk Morris, Neil. You've got to believe me. I know how it sounds. Crazy. But it was him." "You didn't _see_ him," reminded Hardesty gently. "You were under great stress. It might have been an hallucination, you know." "Was that explosion," demanded Shaughnessey, "imagination? It blew the warehouse plumb from here to Tophet. If I'd been within five hundred yards, I'd have been blown to a bunch of rags. It was him, Neil. I'd know his voice any time, any place." Vurrth said thoughtfully, "But Dirk dead, no?" "That's what we _thought_," said Brian doggedly. "But he ain't dead. Either he's still alive, or his ghost--" A strange look swept his features. He stopped, glanced at the new leader of the group. "Neil, could it have been a--" "I don't know," confessed Hardesty. "I honestly do not know. We'll just have to wait and see, Brian. But if he's coming here tonight, he'd better come soon. It's almost midnight. After the curfew, we won't be allowed to move on the streets." "Particularly," interjected a new member of the Group, "now. The Overlord's guards are watching the streets like a pack of hounds since the theft of the Princess' jewels." Hardesty said staunchly, "They can't blame that on us. We were all at work when it happened. Still ... I'd like to know who did it. I'd like to know what became of them, too. Disappeared into thin air, the Princess claimed--" "_The jewels_," said a familiar voice, "_have been distributed where they will do the most good. Their wealth has been converted into food to fill the bellies of those who hunger._" All occupants of the refuge spun as one, seeking in vain the speaker. Neil Hardesty cried: "Dirk! Then Brian was right! But ... where are you?" The voice from nowhere chuckled. "That is what Garroway would like to know. I am beside you, Neil. Reach out your hand." Hardesty did so. Briefly he felt a strange, warm tingling ... then his hand met and gripped the hand of Morris. Tears sprang to the Group leader's eyes. He choked, "Dirk! Thank the gods you have returned! We thought you were--" He hesitated over the word. Morris supplied it. "Dead? I am, Neil ... so far as you are concerned." All members of the listening party stirred uneasily. Vurrth grunted, and Brian Shaughnessey husked, "You see? I guessed it. A ghost--" "That's right," laughed Morris in most unwraithlike tones. "A ghost. A galactic ghost ... free to roam the System without hindrance or bar. Fleshless at will ... but with a body if I so desire." "You ... you mean," choked Neil, "you can make yourself visible if you wish?" "Not visible to your eyes, no. But I can render myself solid when it is necessary to do so. It was thus--" Morris laughed--"I stole the tax-collector's gleanings and the Princess Lenore's jewels. Thus, too, I helped Brian destroy the munitions dump."