reek general beamed at him. The American colonel's
eyes were hard and suspicious. One of the two Greek colonels was very
slightly cross-eyed. The Greek major shook hands solemnly.

Coburn took a deep breath. "I know my tale sounds crazy," he said, "but
... I had a telephone call just now. Hallen will bear me out that my
secretary was impersonated by somebody else this afternoon."

"I've told them that," said Hallen unhappily.

"And something was impersonating Dillon up in the hills," finished
Coburn. "I've reason to believe that at this address"--and he handed the
address he'd written down to Hallen--"a ... creature will be found who
will look most convincingly like Miss Ames, here. You might send and
see."

The American colonel snorted: "This whole tale's preposterous! It's an
attempt to cash in on the actual mystery of what happened up-country."

The Greek general protested gently. His English was so heavily accented
as to be hard to understand, but he pointed out that Coburn knew details
of the event in Naousa that only someone who had been there could know.

"True enough," said the American officer darkly, "but he can tell the
truth now, before we make fools of ourselves sending him to Athens to be
unmasked. Suppose," he said unpleasantly, "you give us the actual
facts!"

Coburn nodded. "The idea you find you can't take is that creatures that
aren't human can be on Earth and pass for human beings. There's some
evidence on that right here." He nodded to the Greek major who was the
junior officer in the room. "Major, will you show these other gentlemen
the palm of your hand?"

The Greek major frowned perplexedly. He lifted his hand and looked at
it. Then his face went absolutely impassive.

"I'm ready to shoot!" snapped Coburn. "Show them your hand. I can tell
now."

He felt the tensing of the others in the room, not toward the major but
toward him. They were preparing to jump him, thinking him mad.

But the major grinned ruefully: "Clever, Mr. Coburn! But how did you
pick me out?"

Then there was a sensation of intolerable brightness all around. But it
was not actual light. It was a sensation inside one's brain.

Coburn felt himself falling. He knew, somehow, that the others were
falling too. He saw everyone in the room in the act of slumping limply
to the floor--all but the Greek major. And Coburn felt a bitter,
despairing fury as consciousness left him.

IV

He came to in a hospital room, with