off. Deny everything!"

He waved his hand. She left the office.

Her plane was barely south of Virginia when a spokesman for the Pentagon
assured a news conference that the Defense Department had no information
about an alleged non-terrestrial spaceship landing in Antarctica. The
newspaper reporters pulled newspapers from their pockets. The Pentagon
had been denying things right and left, in obedience to orders. Now the
newspapers printed reproductions of United Nations records, showing that
at the request of the Defense Department four United Nations passports
had been issued. The records said that the passports were for Jane and
John Doe, and Ruth and Richard Roe, who obviously could not enter the
United States without proper documents. The UN information on those
persons was: birthplace, unknown; nationality, unknown; age, unknown;
description, not given; race, unknown; occupation, unknown. And all the
newspapers carried headlines about "SPACESHIP CREW US-BOUND." Or:

"TAKE US TO YOUR PRESIDENT"--ALIENS

_Spaceship Crew Demands Top-Level Conference._
Ultimatum Hinted At

It was not, of course, exclusively an American affair. The London
_Times_ pointed out the remarkable amount of detailed speculation in the
air, as compared with the minute amount of admitted facts. But
elsewhere: _Pravda_ insisted that the aliens had refused to enter into
discussions with America after learning of its capitalistic social
system and tyrannical government. _Ce Soir_ claimed exclusive private
information that the crew of the spaceship--which was twelve hundred
metres long--were winged monsters of repellant aspect. The official
newspaper in Bucharest, to the contrary, said that they were intelligent
reptiles. In Cairo it was believed and printed that the spacecraft was
manned by creatures of protean structure, remarkably resembling
legendary _djinns_.

There were other descriptions, all attributing monstrous qualities and
brutally aggressive actions to the aliens.

And at Gissell Bay the staff became rather fond of four young people
whose names were Zani, Fran, Hod and Mal, because they had been very
well brought up by their parents and were thoroughly nice children.

* * * * *

They were tense, and they were desperately anxious and uneasy. But they
displayed a resolute courage that made moderately decent people like
them very much. Most of the research-staff wanted very badly