his air had been cut off.

After his bulk had vanished into the corridor, Brent turned a scowl on
Marcia Holly. "And what are you snickering about."

She raised large blue, innocent eyes. "Me? I? Oh, golly. I just found a
cute little Freudian slip in these notes and--"

"Shut up. Are they all here?"

"Birch of the State Department sent regrets. A duty call on the
Tasmanian Embassy or something."

"Okay--and next week he'll be screaming to high heaven about being left
out."

Marcia's laughing eyes agreed. "Ain't it the truth?" she marveled.

Brent strode past her and expertly mussed her sleek hairdo in a quick
gesture. As he entered his private conference room, he turned and
grinned at her silent fury.

Inside, they were all waiting for him, seated around a teakwood table.
The wall-to-wall carpeting was wine-red. The chairs were deep and
upholstered. And the men who sat in them were distinguished only by
their surroundings and their uniforms. Their metal and their worth were
hidden inside.

Brent moved to the end of the table and scanned them moodily. "Okay,
gentlemen. I'll talk. Then if you have any questions--shoot them." He
took a deep breath and began:

"We are faced with a situation that must be kept top secret for two
reasons: First, it may be the first move in an attempt to subjugate or
destroy our planet; two, it is so utterly ridiculous on its face that a
public announcement would be greeted by hoots of laughter from pole to
pole." Brent's ugly scowl deepened at what he seemed to feel was an
injustice. "Even the Eskimos would get a yack out of it."

The group waited, withholding judgment, evidently waiting to see whether
or not it was a laughing matter. They were conceding nothing. Brent
studied them for a moment and then went on.

"Last week, in Denver, early in the morning," he said, "a man was found
dead on a residential-section street. There was no apparent cause of
death. A routine autopsy revealed some peculiar things about the man's
insides. For one thing, he had two hearts--"

Jones of the Air Force, a dignified, gray-haired man, paused in firing
his cigar and gave the impression he was lighting his way through the
darkness. Bright of the Navy, a thin man with a huge Adam's apple,
allowed it to bob three times in deference to the startling nature of
Brent's statement. Pender of the Army raised one eyebrow and let it
fall. To a keen observer, Hagen of the FBI would have revealed prior
kn