"The more I see of the whole business," said the girl, "the more it looks fishy to me." She lit a cigarette thoughtfully. Her face was slender, with black brows and big grey eyes, and her slim figure made her look sixteen. "And it gets fishier and fishier the more we talk."
Paul nodded. "Exactly. There's something that we aren't seeing or realizing or that we just don't know about this creature."
"Well, let's try classifying what we do know," said Roberts. "We've got a picture that isn't worth a plugged nickel. We've got a few photos of the outside of the ship before it exploded. We know that he's psi-triple-high, fully telepathic, with the ability to fuzz up his observer's perception of him."
"Disguise," said Jean. "It isn't perfect. He needs that to hide the wrinkles in the disguise."
Faircloth walked across the room, staring at the walls. "Then there's the ship. It was found near Gutenberg, Iowa, on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi, three months ago. That's a fact. Farm kids found the ship but didn't go near it. Scared stiff. Told their father and he called Security. I don't suppose there was any way of telling how long the ship had been there?"
Roberts shook his head. "Biologists and geologists both had a whack at it, but the explosion destroyed all the flora and ground area within twenty feet of it."
"Well, anyway, no occupant of the ship was found, and no trace of where the occupant might have gone. Security sent a scout squad down to photograph the ship and it blew into a million pieces."
"That's right."
"How many of the million pieces were recovered?"
"About ten. Magnesium alloy. Told us nothing."