The director leveled his gun at Street.
"I am at last convinced that there is only one way in which you could be so certain that Baker is not dead. You know he is alive, and you know it because you are Baker."
"You are correct," Street said. "I am the celebrated Robin Hood of space. It is too great an honor to deny."
"I will go into confinement for many years because of what I am about to do, but I must see the Galaxy rid of you."
The director fired the lethal charge at point-blank range and the tall man tumbled to the floor.
"I had to do it," the director said over the body. "It was well enough to frame you for Baker's crimes due to your suspicious knowledge of him, but I didn't know you were going to fail to protest, that you were going to go along with the lie. I couldn't stand another man living to take the honor for being Baker. There can be no living Baker but me."
XII
The tall man rolled over on the floor and sat up. "Then you admit that you are Baker? No, never mind firing again. I am wearing meteor armor under my clothes. It's sufficient to stop a gun blast."
"You are a clever devil," the director snarled.
"A man has to be clever to be Baker."