"Wouldn't you like to know?" he wheezed. My fingers tightened. Suddenly he drew up his foot and lashed out at my stomach. I let go of his throat and fell back, the wind knocked out of me. As I staggered backward, he darted for the fallen box, but I recovered and brought my foot down hard on his outstretched hand. He snarled in pain. I felt his other fist crash into my stomach again. I was almost numb, sick, ready to curl up in a knot and close my eyes. But I forced myself to suck in breath and hit him. His head snapped back. I hit him again, and he reeled soggily. His neat, precise lips swelled into a bloody mass. His fists moved hazily; I blackened one of his eyes, and he groaned and slumped. Fury was in my fists; I was avenging the honor of the Exploratory Wing against the one man who had broken its oaths. "Enough ... enough...." But I hit him again and again, till he sagged to the floor. I picked up the black metal box, fondled it in my hands. Then, tentatively, I threw a thought at it. _Monster._ The monster appeared in all its ugliness. _Vanish._ It vanished. "That's how it works, isn't it?" I said. "It's a thought projector. That monster never existed outside your own mind, Donaldson." "Don't hit me again," he whined. I didn't. He was beneath contempt. I threw open the door and saw the other crewmen huddled outside, their faces pale. "It's all over," I said. "Here's your monster." I held out the black box. * * * * * We held court on Donaldson that night, and he made full confession. That first day, he had stumbled over an alien treasure in the cave beyond the hill--that, and the thought-converter. The idea came to him that perhaps, as sole survivor of the expedition, he could turn some of the treasure to his own uses. So he utilized the thought-converter in a campaign to pick us off one by one without aiming suspicion at himself. Only his clumsy way of pretending to see the creature himself had given him away; else he might have killed us all. Our rulebook gave no guide on what to do about him--but we reached a decision easily enough. When we left Pollux V, taking with us samples of the treasure, and other specimens of the long-dead race (including the thought-converter) we left Donaldson behind, on the bare, lifeless planet, with about a week's supply of food and air. No one ever learned of his treachery. We listed him as a casualty, along with Max and Leo, when we returned to Earth. The Exploratory Wing had too noble a name to tarnish by revealing what Donaldson had done ... and none of us will ever speak the truth. The Wing means too much to us for that. And I think they're going to award him a posthumous medal....