y in passenger business. He made money, on a scale that no
government-operated line had yet been able to approach.

Mel sank down to the floor, continuing to shift through the other things
in the drawer.

His hand stopped. He remained motionless as recognition showered sudden
frantic questions in his mind. There lay a ticket envelope marked
Connemorra Lines.

The envelope was empty when he looked inside, and there was no name on
it. But it was worn. As if it might have been carried to Mars and back.

In sudden frenzy he began examining each article and laying it in a
careless pile on the floor. He recognized a pair of idiotic Martian
dolls. He found a tourist map of the ruined cities of Mars. He found a
menu from the Red Sands Hotel.

And below all these there was a picture album. Alice at the Red Sands.
Alice at the Phobos Oasis. Alice at the Darnella Ruins. He turned the
pages of the album with numb fingers. Alice in a dozen Martian settings.
Some of them were dated. About two years ago. They had gone together,
Alice had said, but there was no evidence of Mel's presence on any such
trip.

But it was equally impossible that Alice had made the trip, yet here was
proof. Proof that swept him up in a doubting of his own senses. How
could such a thing have taken place? Had he actually made such a trip
and been stripped of the memory by some amnesia? Maybe he had forced
himself to go with her and the power of his lifelong phobia had wiped it
from his memory.

And what did it all have to do--if anything--with the unbelievable thing
Dr. Winters had found about Alice?

Overcome with grief and exhaustion he sat fingering the mementos
aimlessly while he stared at the pictures and the ticket envelope and
the souvenirs.

* * * * *

Dr. Winters spoke a little more sharply than he intended. "I don't think
anything is going to be solved by a wild-goose chase to Mars. It's going
to cost you a great deal of money, and there isn't a single positive
lead to any solution."

"It's the only possible explanation." Mel persisted. "Something happened
on Mars to change her from what she once was to--what you saw on your
operating table."

"And you are hoping that in some desperate way you will find there was a
switch of personalities--that there may be a ghost of a chance of
finding Alice still alive."

Mel bit his lip. He was scarcely willing to admit such a hope but it was
the foundation of his