He was an ordinary looking man. He was slender, about thirty, and very pale. A single-factor Psi-High had no distinguishing physical characteristics; there really was no reason to expect a double-factor psi-positive to look any different. But somehow they had half expected a god-like creature, and he just looked like a frightened young man. His face was mild and rather sad. But his eyes were clear and sharp, and the mouth was in a grim line, as he sank back on the couch. "I was afraid you'd never spot it," he said. "For a while it looked as though the whole thing would backfire. I mean when Towne was planning the shift in the Council and trying to force an election. I was afraid--and in the midst of that, you started your cat-and-mouse game--" Faircloth nodded. "We had no choice. We didn't know, and you didn't dare reveal what you were doing at that point." The man shook his head. "It was better this way, much better. I planned to kill Towne and then let you capture me. Counting on you to work the propaganda right. Then nobody would have known that the Alien was killed before he even got started." Faircloth smiled. "The computer even listed that as a possibility. Low probability, but that was on the basis of what we knew. We hadn't even considered it--yet every living Psi-High has known for a long time that someday two Psi-Highs would have a child. We could only guess what the child might be like." The man looked up at them sadly. "The child would be lonely beyond words," he said. "He would be able to hide, yes. He would be able to slow down his psi-powers in order to appear like an ordinary Psi-High. He could never have revealed it. Not even to his closest friends." "And you knew that the real Alien had been killed?" "Almost as soon as it happened. He died in agony. He had a powerful mind. He broadcast so wildly that every Psi-High within a hundred miles must have gotten a shower. I was in Des Moines, and got the whole picture clear as a bell. Went down and picked the details out of the farmer's brain. He was too frightened to tell what he had done, and nobody paid too much attention to him anyway." He shifted wearily on the cot. "The Alien must have been working so hard to maintain his disguise that the farmer caught him short. I knew it, and I knew what I had to do. I went ahead and did it." "Of course Towne will fight," said Roberts later, when the man had drifted off into a deep sleep. "He's clever, and resourceful. When we 'rescue' him from Eagle Rock, he's going to know exactly what has happened." Jean Sanders laughed happily. "I'd like to see him," she said. "I'd like to see him helpless just once."