"A wise decision, sheriff," he said dryly. "Wiser, perhaps, than you'll ever know." * * * * * The old man stood in the center of Winant's hotel room, the sheriff's ill-fitting denims hanging on his slight frame like the castoff clothing of a scare-crow. "The box," he said. His voice, after talking for so long, was a hoarse, rasping croak. "Give me the box." Winant sat in a decrepit wicker chair, holding the box in his lap, his eyes missing no detail of the old man's shrunken figure with its bald dome-like head and wrinkled parchment face. "I'll give you the box when you tell me something that makes sense," he said. "What you've just told me is nothing but a rehash of the story you told the sheriff--that your name is Yardana and that you are an envoy from Mars, sent to Earth to help scientific authorities develop safe atomic power. Look--I'm a news writer, down here to investigate the rumors of a blue meteorite landing in the hills just north of here and to check up on the comic accounts I read of your appearance. I went to a lot of trouble and some risk to get you out of jail, and I want a reasonable story for my trouble. What about it, now?" The old man wrung his hands. "Give me the box. Give me the box!" "Later," Winant promised. "When you give me the real story behind this thing I'll not only give you back your box, I'll give you a lift out of this burg as well." He looked at the old man sharply. "How could a Martian speak the kind of English you've been using? Why should a Martian look so much like an ordinary human being? It doesn't add up." "We are of the same root stock," Yardana said. "Intelligent life follows the same evolutionary pattern, no matter where it develops, so long as conditions are the same. As for the language, my people have followed your experiments with electro-magnetics since their beginning. We know every language of Earth intimately, through long study of your radio programs." Winant laughed. "Maybe the sheriff was right, at that," he said. "It's a goofy story, too fantastic for belief." He shrugged and handed the old man the black box. "Here's your toy," he said resignedly. "I guess that's all I'm going to get for my trouble; just enough misinformation for another tongue-in-cheek article for Sunday supplements." He picked up his brief-case from the floor and laid it on the corner of the writing table at his elbow. "The lift I promised you still goes, if you want it, but it'll have to wait until tomorrow." The old man took the black box eagerly and threw back the cover. His fingers flickered over the controls with practised familiarity. "I shall not need your assistance--now," he said. His pale eyes met Winant's triumphantly. "Now that I have the Bubble again I have a means of return to my ship better than any Earthly conveyance could offer. Watch!" * * * * *