"Nope," Pop answered without hesitation, just as if it hadn't been four hours or so since he'd mentioned the point. "Nope, Ray. Fact is I welcomed him into our little fellowship about six months back. This is _his_ knife here, this horn-handle in my boot, though he never killed with it. He claimed he'd been tortured for years by the thought of the millions and millions he'd killed with blast and radiation, but now he was finding peace at last because he was where he belonged, with the murderers, and could start to do something about it. Several of the boys didn't want to let him in. They claimed he wasn't a real murderer, doing it by remote control, no matter how many he bumped off." "I'd have been on their side," Alice said, thinning her lips. "Yep," Pop continued, "they got real hot about it. _He_ got hot too and all excited and offered to go out and kill somebody with his bare hands right off, or try to (he's a skinny little runt), if that's what he had to do to join. We argued it over, I pointed out that we let ex-soldiers count the killings they'd done in service, and that we counted poisonings and booby traps and such too--which are remote-control killings in a way--so eventually we let him in. He's doing good work. We're fortunate to have him." "Do you think he's really the guy who pushed the buttons?" I asked Pop. "How should I know?" Pop replied. "He claims to be." I was going to say something about people who faked confessions to get a little easy glory, as compared to the guys who were really guilty and would sooner be chopped up than talk about it, but at that moment a fourth voice started talking in the plane. It seemed to be coming out of the violet patch on the North America screen. That is, it came from the general direction of the screen at any rate and my mind instantly tied it to the violet patch at Atla-Hi. It gave us a fright, I can tell you. Alice grabbed my knee with her pliers (she changed again), harder than she'd intended, I suppose, though I didn't let out a yip--I was too defensively frozen. * * * * * The voice was talking a language I didn't understand at all that went up and down the scale like atonal music. "Sounds like Chinese," Pop whispered, giving me a nudge. "It _is_ Chinese. Mandarin," the screen responded instantly in the purest English--at least that was how I'd describe it. Practically Boston. "Who are you? And where is Grayl? Come in, Grayl." I knew well enough who Grayl must be--or rather, have been. I looked at Pop and Alice. Pop grinned, maybe a mite feebly this time, I thought, and gave me a look as if to say, "_You_ want to handle it?" I cleared my throat. Then, "We've taken over for Grayl," I said to the screen. "Oh." The screen hesitated, just barely. Then, "Do any of 'you' speak Mandarin?" I hardly bothered to look at Pop and Alice. "No," I said. "Oh." Again a tiny pause. "Is Grayl aboard the plane?" "No." I said.