And now, for the first time, he saw the eyes of Jim Palmer clearly. There was something in them that he could not understand, a pleading to be understood that escaped his senses. And the something that was in them was oddly at variance with the smile on the ruddy face and the reassuring words.
"You must have seen us when we were asleep," Jim Palmer explained, "After working on these Lanka plants for so long a time, you get such a slow steady heart action that it takes a stethoscope to find it."
"Maybe?" Don Denton said skeptically. "But I still think you were dead."
Jim Palmer laughed, the sound a long booming roll of mirth that drew curious glances from the workers at the rendering shed. His lips writhed back, and his shoulders shook with merriment, but his eyes never changed expression.
"Do we look dead?" he asked mirthfully.
"It isn't what you look like, it's what you are that counts," Don Denton countered. "I've seen Martian Zombies that got around pretty well."
"Yes," Jim Palmer nodded. "I've seen them. But they don't breathe or eat; and I can assure you that my men and I do both."
He stepped forward, stretched his hand in a friendly gesture. "Come on," he finished, "put away your guns, and come meet the men. Maybe the Doc had better take a look at you, too; you don't look so well, you've probably got a touch of fever giving you hallucinations."
Steam hissed from the muddy ground between them as the trouble shooter fired his left hand gun. "I'm not joking," he snapped. "Make a move I don't like, and I'll be damned certain you're dead!"
Jim Palmer sucked in his breath with an audible gasp, and muscles rippled in his heavy shoulders as his arms came up in a threatening gesture.