But perhaps the man on the floor had no dignity to maintain. He wasn't Ramsey. He was a hired substitute, an impostor, and quite obviously no man would undertake to play such a role without calculating all of the risks in advance. Perhaps he expected to die without dignity. Perhaps that was one of the risks which went with the bargain--the assumption that Ramsey might very well be killed in a violent fashion, and that anyone who stepped into Ramsey's shoes and masqueraded as Ramsey might expect a similar fate. Corriston felt a nerve begin to twitch violently in his cheek. Why had Ramsey kept Henley occupied in so strange a manner, talking to a nonentity, a stand-in, a double who could never bargain and come to terms unless Ramsey ordered him to do so? Had Ramsey been incapable of dealing with Henley directly, and had taken this means of complying with the ransom demands? It seemed incredible on the face of it. Ramsey was quite obviously the kind of man who could live through any kind of private hell if he had to. He'd have stood up to Henley no matter how great his inner torment. He'd have met the ransom demands or rejected them--and it was almost inconceivable that he would have rejected them--without for an instant losing his outward composure. And even inwardly he would have kept a tight rein on his emotions. He was not the kind of man who would hire someone else to protect him from anything that vitally concerned him, even with the masks so conveniently at hand. Why then had he employed a double to bargain with Henley and keep him occupied for so long a time? It didn't matter if Ramsey had made use of doubles in the past. Probably he had, in order to protect himself in dealings with the colonists when the advantages of deception would favor him. But he would never have done so under these present circumstances--when a criminal who would stop at nothing was holding his daughter under threat of death. He would never have done so unless he had some very special reason that dominated his thinking to the exclusion of all else. Suddenly Corriston had the answer. It came to him in a lightning-swift flash of intuition, which carried with it complete credibility. It was more than a guess. Somehow he was sure; he knew. A full minute before he heard the dull rumble of the tractors as they came through the gate, and went to the window and stared down, he knew. He had the answer and yet what he saw eclipsed what he knew. It was a little like watching a rocket take off, hearing the roar and seeing the flames through all of its burning time, and seeing at the same time the men on the proving ground moving swiftly about, and the space-helmeted men at the controls of the rocket itself, each grimly intent on one particular task.