was not mine!"

They stared at him, their smiles fading.

Colonel Meadows said, "What do you mean, Robbie?"

"Didn't you hear when I spoke? I never said those last things. Didn't
you hear what I said?"

The technician answered him. "We didn't hear a thing, Mr. Crawford. The
amplification was too high. It was nothing but mumbling when it passed
through this room." He looked at Dr. Shalt for confirmation.

"I explained that to you myself," said the doctor. "You could have
recited the Gettysburg Address and we'd never have known until it
returned."

Crawford stared down at the limp form of Spud hanging across his arm. He
ran a hand across his eyes, dropped the dummy onto the desk. Turning
back to Dr. Shalt, he began to speak in a taut, controlled voice.

"Dr. Shalt, I swear to you that was not my voice at the end. I finished
with a goodbye. The voice that spoke after that moment of silence was
somebody else's voice. It's up to you to find out whose."

"Don't be absurd," said Dr. Shalt, irritably. "That was _your_ voice,
_your_ pitch. The voice of your dummy, Spud." He wasn't going to be
taken in by any warped sense of humor. Robbie Crawford was the best
ventriloquist in America. He was also noted for his practical jokes. "An
experiment of this magnitude shouldn't be treated so lightly," he added
acidly.

"You've got to believe me!" screamed Crawford. His voice was choked and
his pale face was glistening with perspiration. "It was someone else,
imitating my ventriloquist voice! I swear it was not me!"

Colonel Meadows sat down abruptly. The technician ran from the booth and
returned a moment later with a glass of water. Colonel Meadows motioned
for him to give it to Crawford.

The ventriloquist gulped down the water, then went over and sat down
beside the Colonel.

"Look," he said quietly. "I'm not joking and I'm not out of my head. It
was a shock to hear a voice so like my own, to hear it threaten us, to
know that it's traveling from another world. It's like hearing an echo
that shouldn't be."

The Colonel exchanged a puzzled look with Dr. Shalt. After a moment the
doctor reached down and picked the dummy up and brought it to Crawford.

"Crawford, listen to me." His voice was gentle, sympathetic. "Perhaps
you've been working too hard. These USO trips, the rehearsal, the
excitement of the last hour. Maybe you forgot what you said, or said
more than you recall."

"I remember everything I said," Crawford sa