James Connemorra was silent for so long that Mel thought he had not heard him. "Is everyone different when they get back?" Mel demanded. "Does something happen to everybody who takes the Mars trip, the same thing that happened to Alice?"
"You learned so much," said Connemorra, speaking as if to himself, "I had to hunt you down and bring you here."
"What do you mean by that? I came through my own efforts. Your office tried to stop me."
"Yet I knew who you were and that you were here. I must have had something to do with it, don't you think?"
"What?"
"I forced you to come by deception, so that no one knows you are here—except the old man whose name you used. Who will believe him that you came on the Martian Princess? Our records will show that a Jake Norton will be there on Earth. No one can ever prove that Mel Hastings ever came aboard."
Mel let his breath out slowly. His fear suddenly swallowed caution. He took a crouching step forward. Then he stopped, frozen. James Connemorra tilted the small pistol resting in his lap. Mel did not know how it came to be there. He had not seen it a moment ago.
"What are you going to do?" Mel demanded. "What are you going to do with all of us?"
"You know too much," said Connemorra, shrugging in mock helplessness. "What can I do with you?"