"Bit of a shock, I should imagine," Forbes said. "Discovering all of us, as it were."
Heidel licked his lips. "How? How could you do this?"
Forbes remained motionless. "Simple as one, you know. Put men on rockets going back to Earth in place of returning colonists. Study. Observe. Learn. Shift a record here and there. Forge, change pictures, all that sort of thing. Poor contact between here and Earth, you know. Not too difficult."
"I'll get one of you," Heidel said, still balancing his pistol tightly.
"Well, possibly," Forbes said. "But no more than one. You have three guns pointed at you. We can see you perfectly, you know, as though it were broad daylight. One shiver of that pistol, and you're dead."
"Why have you done this?" Heidel said suddenly. "Why? Everything that was done was for the Martian. We tried to give you freedom and culture, the benefit of our knowledge...."
"We didn't like your wrestlers," Forbes said.
Heidel's nostrils twitched, and suddenly he swung the pistol. There was a crashing explosion and then silence.
"Good," said Forbes. "I don't think he got the last one fired."
"You're all right then?" asked Meehan, putting his gun on the table.