ark hair turning gray at the fringe. One was
considerably more muscular than the other two. One leaned to overweight.
The third was quite thin. Yet Mel felt himself bristling like a dog in
the dark of the moon.

No matter how ordinary they looked, these three were not men of Earth.
The certainty of this settled like a cold, dead weight in the pit of his
stomach.

"You--" he stammered. There was nothing to say.

"Please recline on this couch," the nearest, the muscular one said. "We
wish you no harm so do not be afraid. We wish only to determine if you
have been harmed by your flight into space."

All three of them were tense and Mel was sure they were worried--by his
escapade. Had he nearly let some unknown cat out of the bag?

"Please--," the muscular one said.

He had no alternative. He might struggle, and destroy a good deal of
apparatus, but he could not hope to overwhelm them. He lay on the couch
as directed. Almost instantly the overweight one was behind him, seizing
his arm. He felt the sting of a needle. The thin one was at his feet,
looking down at him soberly. "He will rest," the thin one said, "and
then we shall know what needs to be done."

* * *

The sleep had lasted for an eon, he thought. He had a sense of the
passage of an enormous span of time when he at last awoke. His vision
was fuzzy, but there was no mistaking the image before him.

Alice. His Alice--safe.

She was sitting on the edge of the bed, smiling down at him. He fought
his way up to a half-sitting position. "Alice!" He wept.

Afterwards, he said, "Where are we? What happened? I remember so many
crazy things--the vacation to Mars."

"Don't try to remember it all, darling," she said. "You were sick. Some
kind of hysteria and amnesia hit you while we were there. We're home
now. You'll soon be out of the hospital and everything will be all
right."

"I spoiled it," he murmured. "I spoiled it all for you."

"No. I knew you were going to be all right. I even had a lot of fun all
by myself. But we're going back. As soon as you are all well again we'll
start saving up and go again."

He nodded drowsily. "Sure. We'll go to Mars again and have a real
vacation."

Alice faded away. All of it faded away.

* * * * *

As if from a far distance the walls of Dr. Martin's laboratory seemed to
close about him and the lights slowly increased. Dr. Martin was seated
beside him, his head shak