But the other guard was rising. Ducking, I snatched up his fallen comrade's chair and hurled it at him. The man threw up his arms to ward it off. Lunging at him full-tilt, head lowered, I butted him in the stomach. The wind went out of him in a gust. He tottered backward, his mouth opening and closing in agonized, fish-like contortions as he fought to catch his breath. I stomped on his foot and gave him a violent reverse shove past me. Lurching wildly, he tumbled into the heavy-set guard--now arising--just as had Gaylord. Together, they went down atop the controller in a comic-opera slap-stick tangle. Then a hand came clear of the threshing clutter of arms and legs. It held a paragun. I kicked for--connected with--the wrist. The weapon flew wide. I dived after it, arm outstretched. But before I could claw it up, a voice lashed out, harsh and heavy, from the doorway to Kruze's quarters: "Don't touch it, Traynor!" Kruze's voice. The back of my neck prickled. Carefully, I drew my hand away from the paragun, then turned. The controller of all FedGov Security's far-flung interplanetary operations stood staring down at me out of heavy-lidded eyes that in this moment sparked cold malice. One slab-like hand gripped a paragun, twin to the one I'd tried to snatch. "So, Traynor...." "So?" I flung the word back at him with a belligerence to match his gloating. A sudden, swift recklessness surged through me. "I've got some things to say to you, Controller. That's why I came here." * * * * * The heavy-lidded eyes didn't even flicker. The thick body stood granite-like, immobile. "What things?" "Things about the Kel." I got up from the floor; stepped towards him. Sheer urgency drained the anger from me. "Kruze, they're infiltrating. Tonight--right now, maybe--" "Shall we shut him up, chief? You want us to stop him?" It was the heavy-set guard, on his feet again now. Beside him, his thinner companion threw me a look of smoldering hate. A sullen-looking Gaylord was dusting himself off behind them. I said desperately, "Kruze, you've got to listen! I found that girl--the one who called about the thrill-mills on the voco. She's been a Kel prisoner ever since Bejak II. She knows their plan, the details--" "And just how does she know it?" "What--?" "I said, how does she know it?" Never had the controller's heavy-lidded eyes seemed colder, the bulky body less yielding. And then, as I groped: "To the best of my knowledge, no human has ever communicated with the Kel. We don't even know what they look like. Consequently, I find it difficult to accept the concept of alien infiltration as a practical threat, in the face of our warning net and proved defensive measures." "But they're shape-changers!" Involuntarily, my hands moved in frantic, pleading gestures. "They can simulate men. It's only the conditioned consistency of human behavior that's baffled them--"