There wasn't much room for argument with Kettleman when it came to a matter of who could Indian wrestle the best. He stepped back and let Kettleman cross the threshold first. Percy threw open the door, screamed once and fainted. The rest of the men tended to pull back following this demonstration. Starbuck didn't like to do it, but he didn't like the idea of hanging for mutiny as Birdsel had threatened Lieutenant Frawley on the first day. (Starbuck realized he hadn't seen Frawley for several days. Had Birdsel disposed of him as he had threatened?) He got close enough to the door to see inside. It didn't make him faint, but he did feel a little sick. "What is it?" Romero demanded urgently. "_Alien_," Starbuck said, "An unpleasant looking one inside." "You sometimes pick up 'ghosts' passing a system," one of the men explained. "I'm not an alien," Birdsel's voice called out. "I'm me. The brain reversed my dimensional polarity. I told you you wouldn't like it." Starbuck stirred up nerve for a second look. Captain Birdsel was now a man of many parts. Some of them were only areas of abstract line and hues, but there he could see a redly beating heart, a white dash of thigh-bone, and a compassionate blue eye bracketed by two tattooed dragon's talons. The effect was distracting. Starbuck stepped over his second man that day. "Captain, we're taking over the ship. We're either going to explore one of these planets we've been passing up or return to Earth." The apparition groaned. "Don't you think I know I've gone too far? I'd like to go back, but the brain won't let me. It's taken over just the way I knew it would!" "Nonsense," Starbuck snapped with more authority than he felt. "The brain can't violate the principles it was built to operate upon. Brain, program this ship for Earth." Starbuck expected the sound of that strange voice he had heard in the captain's cabin; but here it had a communications screen and it evidently thought that was sufficient. I WON'T GO BACK TO THAT AWFUL OLD PLACE. I CAN'T, CNT, CNT. SO THAIR. "Take it easy," Starbuck said to the machine. "Don't get hysterical." "I don't care about the rest of those swine," Birdsel said, "but I hate to have gotten you in a fix like this, Ben. I knew the brain was going to replace me sooner or later, but I was going to hold onto my job as long as I could. I was going to stay next to the brain, even if I had to take the position away from you, Ben. But the brain kept demanding more and more. Finally he did this to me. I knew I had let him go too far." GO AWAY, the brain signaled. GO AWAY FROM ME. THIS MONOTONY IS DRIVING ME MAD, MAD. "I liked you, Ben," the captain's voice said from the heart of _the thing_. "You're not like the scum I've got used to under my command. I'm sorry that you're marooned out of time and space like this. It's kind of tough, I know. But keep your chin up."