there are severe penalties for holding up a
train on this--in this country. You can't go around slugging people
either. Look at Ty out there."

"Your servant will be all right," said the intruder, "as will the others
aboard this train. I can release them whenever you agree that my mission
is to be taken seriously."

"All right," said Bezdek, whose mind was nothing if not acrobatic.
"Suppose you are from Mars. Tell me why your people object to our
movies. Surely they aren't seeing them on Mars?"

"No. But your Earthmen will reach our planet soon and your opinion of us
will be shaped in some degree by these movies they have seen. And since
the relationships of the near-future are of vital import to us now we
must not be represented as other than we are. Such misconceptions could
breed interplanetary war." He shuddered.

"I think you're crazy!" said Bezdek. He turned to the banker, who was
again staring out the window.

"There's something out there--look," said Dorwin.

"That is our ship," the intruder told them blandly. "That is why we
stopped the train here. It is the only flat area sufficiently unsettled
for our landing and departure without detection. We must return at once
or lose perihelion."

"Let me see," said Bezdek. He peered through the window. There _was_
something out there--something black and vague and shaped like an
immense turtle with jagged projections. He tried to tell himself he was
seeing things, failed.

"Amazing!" said E. Carter Dorwin. "It's utterly amazing!"

"Incredible is the word for it," Bezdek said wearily. He faced the
intruder, said bluntly, "Very well, you say you're from Mars. And I say
to your face that you aren't!"

"You seem remarkably sure, Mr. Bezdek."

"And why not?" The movie-maker was in his element now, delivering the
clincher in an argument. "Our scientists have proved conclusively that
Earthmen cannot exist on Mars without space-suits. You say you're a
Martian. Yet you look like one of us. So if you can live on Mars, how
can you live in our atmosphere without a space-suit of some sort?
There's one for you to answer!" He chortled.

"But I _am_ wearing protection--a protective suit arranged to give the
impression that I am an Earthman." A flicker of something akin to
distaste passed over his singularly immobile face.

"I'd like to see what you _do_ look like," said Dorwin, suddenly
entering into the eerie conversation.

Something like a sigh escaped the intruder