* * * * * Pollard gave a cry of fright and raced around to the other side of the plane but Carroll had gone. Then he shrank from the thing; it was as though the shimmering plane of perfect mirror was beckoning to him. And for one of the few times in his life, Dr. Pollard knew and recognized a psychopathic fear of the Unknown. Carroll, however, knew the facts. He stepped into the basement of his home with the same motion that had carried him over the podium into the mirror in Pollard's office. "Now," he told Rhinegallis, "I'm taking Dr. Pollard a live specimen!" He grabbed Rhinegallis by the wrist and dragged her through the mirror into Pollard's office again. [Illustration: Carroll grabbed Rhinegallis by the wrist and dragged her through the mirror into Pollard's office.] "Here," he said, "is Rhinegallis, one of the inimical aliens." Pollard was dumbfounded. Carroll hurled the girl at Pollard. "I want as complete a medical examination as you can give," he said. "Obviously if she and her race evolved on some distant stellar system, she can not be more than humanoid. Follow?" Pollard nodded. He faced the girl uncertainly and said, "Do you mind?" Rhinegallis blazed. "Of course I mind," she snapped, eyes flashing. Carroll seated himself indolently on Pollard's desk. "If you are really alien," he observed ironically, "you will most heartily object!" "I'm Terran," she insisted. "Then why cavil at proving it?" he urged. "I don't have to!" "I'm afraid you do," he said. "Fact of the matter is I'm still holding a rather high position in the Lawson Laboratory. I can--and will--order Dr. Pollard to do it!" Rhinegallis faced the doctor. "I'll not have it." Carroll spread his hands out in a self-satisfied gesture. "Q.E.D.," he said. "Aliens will object. True Terrans have nothing to fear." Rhinegallis turned upon him angrily. "How about you?" she snapped. "Are you willing to have yourself examined?" "Dr. Pollard knows me," he said simply. "There is no reason for me to go through with this." "I have friends." "Aliens!" He turned to Pollard. "You have always disbelieved me," he said. "Had I brought you here by any other means Pollard would have believed that there was nothing to my tale and would have given you at the most a very superficial examination. "However, after bringing you through the teleport, he is amazed enough to wonder. Pollard, I charge you. Give her as complete an examination as is within your ability and power!" Pollard turned to Rhinegallis and asked her name. "I am Rita Galloway," she said. "And I'm Terran!" "Normally," he said with a half-smile, "no one is expected to go through such an outrageous thing. But do you really mind?"