claimed. "To
try to make liars out of hundreds of eyewitnesses? You ask us to
distort the truth, to connive at ..."

"We aren't asking you to do _anything_!" Hilton snapped. "We don't give
a damn what you do. Just study that record, with all that it implies.
Read between the lines. As for those on the _Perseus_, no two of them
will tell the same story and not one of them has even the remotest idea
of what the real story is. I, personally, not only did not want to
become a monster, but would have given everything I had to stay human.
My wife felt the same way. Neither of us would have converted if there'd
been any other way in God's universe of getting the uranexite and doing
some other things that simply _must_ be done."

"What other things?" Gordon demanded.

"You'll never know," Hilton answered, quietly. "Things no Terran ever
will know. We hope. Things that would drive any Terran stark mad. Some
of them are hinted at--as much as we dared--between the lines of the
report."

The report had not mentioned the Stretts. Nor were they to be mentioned
now. If the Ardans could stop them, no Terran need ever know anything
about them.

If not, no Terran should know anything about them except what he would
learn for himself just before the end. For Terra would never be able to
do anything to defend herself against the Stretts.

"Nothing whatever can drive _me_ mad," Gordon declared, "and I want to
know all about it--right now!"

"You can do one of two things, Gordon," Sawtelle said in disgust. His
sneer was plainly visible through the six-ply, plastic-backed lead glass
of his face-plate. "Either shut up or accept my personal invitation to
come to Ardvor and try to go through the wringer. That's an invitation
to your own funeral." Five-Jet Admiral Gordon, torn inwardly to ribbons,
made no reply.

"I repeat," Hilton went on, "we are not asking you to do anything
whatever. We are offering to give you; free of charge but under certain
conditions, all the power your humanity can possibly use. We set no
limitation whatever as to quantity and with no foreseeable limit as to
time. The only point at issue is whether or not you accept the
conditions. If you do not accept them we'll leave now--and the offer
will not be repeated."

"And you would, I presume, take the _UC-1_ back with you?"

"Of course not, sir. Terra needs power too badly. You are perfectly
welcome to that one load of uranexite, no matter what is decided here."