-He stopped in mid-sentence, his jaw sagging.

One of the jurymen let out a little squeak, and fainted dead away. It
took, all in all, about ten seconds for the statement to soak in.

And then pandemonium broke loose in the courtroom.

* * * * *

"Really," said Harry Zeckler loftily, "it was so obvious I'm amazed that
it didn't occur to me first thing." He settled himself down comfortably
in the control cabin of the Interplanetary Rocket and grinned at the
outline of Altair IV looming larger in the view screen.

Paul Meyerhoff stared stonily at the controls, his lips compressed
angrily. "You might at least have told me what you were planning."

"And take the chance of being overheard? Don't be silly. It had to come
as a bombshell. I had to establish myself as a liar--the prize liar of
them all, but I had to tell the sort of lie that they simply could not
cope with. Something that would throw them into such utter confusion
that they wouldn't _dare_ convict me." He grinned impishly at Meyerhoff.
"The paradox of Epimenides the Cretan. It really stopped them cold. They
_knew_ I was an Earthmen, which meant that my statement that Earthmen
were liars was a lie, which meant that maybe I wasn't a liar, in which
case--oh, it was tailor-made."

"It sure was." Meyerhoff's voice was a snarl.

"Well, it made me out a liar in a class they couldn't approach, didn't
it?"

Meyerhoff's face was purple with anger. "Oh, indeed it did! And it put
_all_ Earthmen in exactly the same class, too."

"So what's honor among thieves? I got off, didn't I?"

Meyerhoff turned on him fiercely. "Oh, you got off just fine. You scared
the living daylights out of them. And in an eon of lying they never have
run up against a short-circuit like that. You've also completely botched
any hope of ever setting up a trading alliance with Altair I, and that
includes uranium, too. Smart people don't gamble with loaded dice. You
scared them so badly they don't want anything to do with us."

Zeckler's grin broadened, and he leaned back luxuriously. "Ah, well.
After all, the Trading Alliance was _your_ outlook, wasn't it? What a
pity!" He clucked his tongue sadly. "Me, I've got a fortune in credits
sitting back at the consulate waiting for me--enough to keep me on silk
for quite a while, I might say. I think I'll just take a nice, long
vacation."

Meyerhoff turned to him, and a twinkle of malignant glee appeared in his
eyes