"How the hell do I kn----_You buried them with me?_" Sarkoff's face went from bewilderment to inexplicable good nature. "Trying to pull my leg, huh? Okay. I can go along with a gag." He looked again at Hargraves. "But I can't go along with that gag of moving the ship after you sent me out scouting. Why didn't you wait for me? Wandering around among all these trees, I might have got lost and got myself killed. Why did you do that, Jed?" he finished angrily. "We were--ah--afraid of an attack," Hargraves choked out. "Sorry, Hal, but we--we had to move the ship. We would have--hunted you up, tomorrow." * * * * * Sarkoff was not a man who was ever long angry about anything. The apology satisfied him. He grinned. "Okay, Jed. Forget it. Jeepers! I'm so hungry I could eat a cow. How about a couple of those synthetic steaks we got in the ice-box?" His eyes went around the group, came to rest on the astro-navigator. "How about it, Ron? How about me and you fixing us up some chow?" "Sure," said Hargraves. "Go on back to the galley and start fixing yourself whatever you want. You go with him, Ron. I'll handle your job up here while you're gone." Nodding dumbly, Ron Val started to follow Sarkoff toward the galley. "One minute," Hargraves called after him. "I want to check something with you before you go!" Sarkoff kept going. Ron Val returned. "Take your cues from him," Hargraves said. "You know him better than anyone else. Whatever he says, you agree. Casually bring up past events and watch his reaction. _Your job is to find out if that is really Hal Sarkoff!_" The astro-navigator, his face white, clumped toward the galley. Hargraves faced a torrent of questions. "Jed! We buried him." "Jed. He had been in that engine room without air for at least ten minutes before we got there. He can't be alive." "No air. Temperature diving toward absolute zero. He was frozen stiff, Jed, before we moved him. We left him where he was until long after we landed." "I know," Hargraves said. "There is no doubt about it. I used a stethoscope on him as soon as I could get to it after we landed. _He was dead._ There wasn't a sign of life." Frightened faces looked at him. Awed faces. Bewildered faces. "What did you mean when you told Ron Val to find out if that is really Sarkoff?" "Just what I said. That may be Sarkoff. It may be something that looks like Sarkoff, acts like him, talks like him--_but isn't he_!" "That--that's impossible." "How do we know what is possible here and what isn't?" "What are we going to do?" "We're going to act just as we would if that were Sarkoff. We're going to pick up our cues from him? You remember he said he was out scouting. That is his story. We will not question it. We will act as though it were true, until we know what is happening. Now everybody back to his post. Act as if nothing had happened. And for the love of Pete, don't ask me what is going on. I don't know any more than you do."