"Can't place you. The Chicago Group, perhaps. I didn't meet them all."
"No."
"Army, then? White House? OSS? I'm a physicist. Sopho's the name."
"This man," said Learned, in a hoarse, uneven voice his ears had never heard before, "comes from—another place." He told the physicist.
Dr. Sopho's right thumb and forefinger touched his small beard. Across the back of his hand—tanned to leather by his long residence in the desert—skin pimpled and the reddish hairs rose. The tiny phenomenon passed—passed like the eddy of air that dimples still water and disappears. His great head with the thin nose and the straight, exaggerate brow bent forward attentively. He was searching the stranger for obvious signs of madness. It became apparent that he found none.
"Incredible," he murmured.
"You do not believe me?"
The scientist shook his head. "My dear fellow—I do not even believe in you. So—naturally—" He turned with abruptness to the colonel. "How did he get aboard? His papers?" He now saw the colonel's frantic, imploring eyes. "Great God, man—you don't accept—?"
"It's the truth," Colonel Calm responded.