Knof Llud whirled to the radio apparatus, his weariness dropping from him once more. He snapped, "But who are you?" and the words blended absurdly with the same words in his own voice on the still repeating tape. He snapped off the record; as he did so the speaker, still crackling with space static, said, "It may interest you to know that you are the last. The two other interstellar expeditions that went out have already returned and been destroyed, as you will soon be--the sooner, if you continue toward Earth." Knof Llud's mind was clicking again. The voice--which must be coming from Earth, relayed by one of the midget ships--was not very smart; it had already involuntarily told him a couple of things--that it was not as sure of itself as it sounded he deduced from the fact it had deigned to speak at all, and from its last remark he gathered that the _Quest III's_ ponderous and unswerving progress toward Earth had somehow frightened it. So it was trying to frighten them. He shoved those facts back for future use. Just now he had to know something, so vitally that he asked it as a bald question, "_Are you human?_" The voice chuckled sourly. "We are human," it answered, "but you are not." The captain was momentarily silent, groping for an adequate reply. Behind him somebody made a choked noise, the only sound in the stunned hush, and the ship jarred slightly as a thunderbolt slammed vengefully into its field. "Suppose we settle this argument about humanity," said Knof Llud woodenly. He named a vision frequency. "Very well." The tone was like a shrug. The voice went on in its language that was quite intelligible, but alien-sounding with the changes that nine hundred years had wrought. "Perhaps, if you realize your position, you will follow the intelligent example of the _Quest I's_ commander." Knof Llud stiffened. The _Quest I_, launched toward Arcturus and the star cloud called Berenice's Hair, had been after the _Quest III_ the most hopeful of the expeditions--and its captain had been a good friend of Llud's, nine hundred years ago.... He growled, "What happened to him?" "He fought off our interceptors, which are around you now, for some time," said the voice lightly. "When he saw that it was hopeless, he preferred suicide to defeat, and took his ship into the Sun." A short pause. "The vision connection is ready." Knof Llud switched on the screen at the named wavelength, and a picture formed there. The face and figure that appeared were ugly, but undeniably a man's. His features and his light-brown skin showed the same racial characteristics possessed by those aboard the _Quest III_, but he had an elusive look of deformity. Most obviously, his head seemed too big for his body, and his eyes in turn too big for his head. He grinned nastily at Knof Llud. "Have you any other last wishes?" "Yes," said Llud with icy control. "You haven't answered one question. Why do you want to kill us? You can see we're as human as you are."