ed, getting to work with a towel.

"I can't understand why you bother to put on the stuff at all," Paul
grinned, "when all you need to do is just change a little more."

"I know." Ivo rubbed his temples vigorously. "I suppose I just like
the--smell of the stuff."

"Ivo," Paul laughed, "there's no use trying to kid me; you are
stagestruck. I'm sure I have enough pull now to get you a bit part
somewhere, when I'm up and around again, and then you can get yourself
an Equity card. Maybe," he added amusedly, "I can even have you replace
Gregory as my understudy."

* * * * *

Later, in retrospect, Paul thought perhaps there had been a curious
expression in Ivo's eyes, but right then he'd had no inkling that
anything untoward was up. He did not find out what had been at the back
of Ivo's mind until the Sunday before the Tuesday on which he was
planning to resume his role.

"Lord, it's going to be good to feel that stage under my feet again," he
said as he went through a series of complicated limbering-up exercises
of his own devisement, which he had sometimes thought of publishing as
_The Lambrequin Time and Motion Studies_. It seemed unfair to keep them
from other actors.

Ivo turned around from the mirror in which he had been contemplating
their mutual beauty, "Paul," he said quietly, "you're never going to
feel that stage under your feet again."

Paul sat on the floor and stared at him.

"You see, Paul," Ivo said, "I am Paul Lambrequin now. I am more Paul
Lambrequin than I was--whoever I was on my native planet. I am more Paul
Lambrequin than _you_ ever were. You learned the part superficially,
Paul, but I really _feel_ it."

"It's not a part," Paul said querulously. "It's me. I've always been
Paul Lambrequin."

"How can you be sure of that? You've had so many identities, why should
this be the true one? No, you only _think_ you're Paul Lambrequin. I
_know_ I am."

"Dammit," Paul said, "that's the identity in which I've taken out Equity
membership. And be reasonable, Ivo--there can't be two Paul
Lambrequins."

Ivo smiled sadly. "No, Paul, you're right. There can't."

Of course Paul had known all along that Ivo was not a human being. It
was only now, however, that full realization came to him of what a
ruthless alien monster the other was, existing only to gratify his own
purposes, unaware that others had a right to exist.

"Are--are you going to--dispose of me, then?" Paul