"Well," Fitzgerald said, "we could get more people in and go at him in shifts—or, well, what about tear gas or an anesthetic gas or—"
"Now, wait!" Browne snapped, unquestionably seizing command. "I'll admit I started him on the run just now. Perhaps it was the wrong approach. After all, he's done nothing wrong as far as we know. I—I guess all of us—leaped to the illogical conclusion that he's out for no good just because he's an alien. Sure, he's after something or he wouldn't be going from door to door posing as a census taker. The way you talk, Jim, would seem to indicate you're not curious. Well, I am, and I'm going to do everything in my power to find out what he's after.
"We've got to make him tell us. We can't deduce anything from the data we have now. Sure, we know he has what you, Jim, say look like bona fide credentials from the Census Bureau, but we also have right here I. D. papers or something which show he's apparently from Alpha Centauri. We know he speaks our language perfectly; ergo he either learned it here first-hand or acquired it from someone else who had learned it here.
"Whatever he's after, his approach certainly varies. He asked you a lot of questions, Fitz, but, Jim, practically all he did in your house was tell you your wife was pregnant with quintuplets. And whatever his approach has been, he never seems to finish whatever he comes to do. Something about you two—and from what you two have said, Kozulak and Wohl—seems to have a most peculiar effect on him; you say he's staggered out of every house he's entered only to recover again in a matter of seconds.
"Just try to equate that!"
He stopped, pondering, and we didn't interrupt.
"Look," he said, "you two go upstairs. Take opposite sides of the house and find him. Go slowly so that he won't be alarmed. Try to talk with him, to persuade him we mean him no harm. If you find you can't persuade him to come willingly, try to work him back to the passenger shaft. I'll watch through the console—I've kinescopes in every room—and I'll lock off one room at a time so that he can't reverse himself. I won't activate the kinescopes until you're upstairs; he might deactivate them if he weren't kept busy. Get him back to the passenger shaft and I'll take over from there."
"But what—" Fitzgerald started.
Browne scowled and we went. Fitzgerald should have known better; there are no buts when Browne gives orders.