Dave snorted scornfully. "During the last time we got in a scrap to prove that we're not as sloppy as you think, I took on a load of fission products. I don't much care whether you kill me quick right now or whether you let me die six months from now. I'm a dead man anyway. But in the meantime, little pawn of the superstate, I might be able to foul you up because I have nothing to be afraid of--but failure!" Dave let that sink in, although he doubted whether it made much impression. Then he demanded, "What do you know about this?" "Nothing." Dave joggled the wounded arm. "Are you certain?" "You can't torture it out of me," said the pilot between gritted teeth. "Maybe I can scare it out of you," said Dave. He stood up and lifted the pilot by hooking his left hand under the windings of tape. He dragged the man along the ground to the helicopter and slung him into the passenger's seat. Then Dave went around and climbed into the pilot seat and wound up the motor. He snapped off the radio and inspected the dashboard carefully to be sure that all radiating equipment was dead; he did not wish to be followed by any direction-finding equipment. Then he drove the helicopter for two solid hours north until he came to a piney forest. He dropped the ship slantwise through the forest for a mile and came to earth in a little glade. The wheels of the 'copter rested on the half-world surface a few inches below the apparent ground. * * * * * "Now, my friend, I'm going to show you a few things that may prove to you that we're not as stupid as you think. For one thing, I, an unarmed man in a strange world, have succeeded in killing one of your buddies, wounding you, and making off with your helicopter. I've succeeded in escaping to a place where it may be difficult--if possible at all--to find us. Third, I've established the fact that you are not carrying any means of communicating to the real world on this 'copter." "Oh, brilliant," said the pilot. "It was," nodded Dave. "You see, we're a bunch of mechanical geniuses, which you've always admitted. So I postulate some sort of mechanical linkage through these devil's crystals of yours. A pencil, perhaps, with the barrel in one world and the magazine in the other world, coupled between them with a bushing made of a crystal. Maybe a radio set with bushings in the dials, and a crystal between the this-world diaphragm and the real-world electrical element. But if we were carrying anything of that nature I'd have felt resistance as we passed down through this forest. So--?" "Why don't you kill me and forget it all?" asked the pilot.