Feeling annoyed with his own nebulous fears, Lloyd sat up again and looked over the groups, Ulkay's and his own. As he watched, Kroner grunted in his sleep and rolled over. Tandy's helmet emitted gentle snoring noises. Harrison and Craig lay more quietly, but their chests could be seen, even in that dim light, rising and falling normally. Lloyd excoriated his imagination for worrying him--it had fed him a quick suggestion that perhaps his companions' masks had been slit, suffocating them silently to death. "I _must_ trust Ulkay; it's necessary," said Lloyd to himself. "I can't let these groundless fears spoil future relations between Earth and Venus. The Venusians are friendly and intelligent, and not really odd-looking, once you discount the number of digits on their hands and a few unearthly color schemes on their torsos. So what am I scared of?" Cold touched his spine, shocking him into alertness, as he isolated his fear. He rolled over and shook Kroner awake with barbaric callousness. "Huh? Wha?" said Kroner, sitting up. "Sergeant," said Lloyd, trying to confide his fear to the other man, "when we got here, we were nervous about making contact with aliens, right?" "Yeah," Kroner said sleepily. "But it turned out okay, sir, didn't it?" He shook his groggy head. "I mean, Ulkay and his bunch are okay, aren't they?" "Yeah," said Lloyd shakily. "_They_ are fine--but, Kroner, they're not the right aliens!" It took Kroner a moment to get it. When he did, he came awake with a jolt. "And we haven't even posted a guard!" Lloyd, his worries abetted by Kroner's response, got to his feet, shouting, "_Mayday! Mayday!_" His men--and Ulkay's a few seconds later--were up, everybody snapping on portable torches and setting the chamber alive with flashing lights. "Ulkay!" Lloyd said, rushing to the Venusian. "If _you're_ not the Martians, and _we're_ not the Martians, then there is still a chance that someone _else_ is the Martians!" Ulkay yelled something to his men, and Lloyd watched with horror as each Venusian fumbled at an empty scabbard upon his belt. Lloyd's hand shot to his holster and found there just what his men were finding in their own holsters: nothing. "Do you think we've discovered the Martians?" said Kroner, his voice hoarse with fright. Then the glaring overhead lights of the room came on, revealing the surrounding phalanx of hard-eyed, armed creatures. "Unless I'm mistaken," Lloyd said, "the Martians have discovered us." An instant later, there was nothing in the center of the alien room but half-molten air compressors and the charred, smoking remains of a funny-looking little nozzle, still echoing a bilingual chorus of agony. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Contact Point, by Jack Sharkey