moved through and past him, to the window and the ship beyond. For
a minute his expression altered, changing almost to one of pain. When
he spoke, it was almost to himself. "My father loved his children more
than ..." He started as his lieutenant suddenly clapped a hand on his
shoulder. The expression vanished. They left together, without looking
at Rothwell or saying another word.

For several minutes Rothwell stared frowning at the closed door. He
walked thoughtfully back to his desk, and lowered himself slowly into
the chair.

He sat for a long time, trying to puzzle through the picture. Finally
he stood and paced the room. "Suppose," he said to himself, "just
suppose that not all of those hundred ships up there are really cargo
ships. Suppose that, say, only twenty are. Then, after those twenty were
loaded ..." He swung around to look again at the long, slim silhouette
poised high against the main runway. "With ocean vessels, it's the
fighting ships that are lean and slender."

Bending over his desk, he nudged an intercom button with his finger.
"Doc, how would one go about trying to understand an alien's
reactions?"

Philips' voice shot right back. "Well, Jim, the very first thing, you'd
have to be sure they weren't exactly the same as a human's reactions."

Rothwell paused, startled. "It can't be, Doc. Why, if Aku was a human
I'd say ..." He stiffened, feeling the hair rise at the back of his
neck. The short, curt answers, the refusal to meet his eyes, the frozen
expression clicked into pattern. "Doc ... I'd say he was being forced to
do something he hated like hell to do."

Tensely, he straightened and contemplated the lean, gray spaceship. Then
he whirled around and slapped every button on the intercom.

* * * * *

Thursday. The sun pecked fitfully at the low overcast while a sullen
crowd watched a squat alien ship descend vertically, to finally settle
with a flaming belch not far from the first. Similar crowds watched
similar landings at nineteen other airports around the world, but the
loading was to start first in New York.

An elevator-like box swung out from the fat belly of the ship and was
lowered rapidly to the ground. Two golden-hued aliens, in uniforms
resembling Aku's, stepped out and walked about a thousand feet towards
the crowd. Only children actually being loaded were to go beyond this
point; parents had to stay at the airport gates.

"When do I go, Dad?