"Yes," replied the creature. "Captain Greenwald sends his regards to you. He says he knows we can do it again and again, any time we want, now, and that's all he wanted to know. He wishes you luck and tells you to go ahead. We landed the rocket on the way back from the moon, first of all, up at Fairbanks, Alaska, outside the settlement, naturally, during the night. Things worked as you planned them. We changed crews there. There was a minor fight. Simpson and the original crew, including Captain Greenwald, are still up there, under psycho-hypnosis. They'll live out their lives happily, unaware, with new names. They won't remember anything. We took off from Fairbanks again this morning with the new crew and our act all rehearsed, I think we did all right."
"Where's the substitute crew now?" inquired Stanley.
"Downstairs," said the creature. "Getting psychoed themselves. Getting mental blocs inserted, so they'll forget they ever fooled the world today. Then we'll send them back to their regular jobs. Can I use your shower?"
Stanley pressed a button, a panel slid aside. "Go ahead."
The creature pulled its face around the edges until it shed off into its hands, a green-grey pallid mask of plastic rubber. The sweating pink face of Cross appeared. He wriggled his fingers next, until the green-gray, chemically bleeding horror gloves sucked off. He tossed these into a wall-incinerator. "The day of the Rocket is over," he said, quietly. "They'll be putting your bill up before the World Legislature tomorrow, or I miss my guess. Carefulness, thought and intellect will now get a start. Humanity is saved from itself."
Stanley watched Cross walk into the shower-cube, peel, and switch on the spray.
He turned to the window again. Two billion people were thinking tonight. He knew what they were thinking. Outside, he heard the explosion as the health department blew up the great Rocket.
That was all. The sound of water on the shower-tiles was a good clean sound.