Sudden hope flickered in Leon’s breast. “They don’t know who we are. They think we’re Commies.” He addressed Scanlan. “We’re the Earth-Mars Expedition. My name is Leon. Remember? A year ago last October. We’re back. We’re back from Mars.” His voice trailed off. The weapons were coming up. Nozzles—hoses and tanks.

“We’re back!” Merriweather croaked. “We’re the Earth-Mars Expedition, comeback!”

Scanlan’s face was expressionless. “That sounds fine,” he said coldly. “Only, the ship crashed and blew up when it reached Mars. None of the crew survived. We know because we sent up a robot scavenger team and brought back the corpses—six of them.”

The FBI men fired. Blazing napalm sprayed toward the six bearded figures. They retreated, and then the flames touched them. The FBI men saw the figures ignite, and then the sight was cut off. They could no longer see the six figures thrashing about, but they could hear them. It was not something they enjoyed hearing, but they remained, waiting and watching.

Scanlan kicked at the charred fragments with his foot. “Not easy to be sure,” he said. “Possibly only five here … but I didn’t see any of them get away. They didn’t have time.” At the pressure of his foot, a section of ash broke away; it fell into particles that still steamed and bubbled.

His companion Wilks stared down. New at this, he could not quite believe what he had seen the napalm do. “I—” he said. “Maybe I’ll go back to the car,” he muttered, starting off away from Scanlan.

“It’s not over positively,” Scanlan said, and then he saw the younger man’s face. “Yes,” he said, “you go sit down.”

People were beginning to filter out onto the sidewalks. Peeping anxiously from doorways and windows. “They got ‘em!” a boy shouted excitedly. “They got the outer space spies!”

Cameramen snapped pictures. Curious people appeared on all sides, faces pale, eyes popping. Gaping down in wonder at the indiscriminate mass of charred ash.

His hands shaking, Wilks crept back into the car and shut the door after him. The radio buzzed, and he turned it off, not wanting to hear anything from it or say anything to it. At the doorway of the cafe, the gray-coated Bureau men remained, conferring with Scanlan. Presently a number of them started off at a trot, around the side of the cafe and up the alley. Wilks watched them go. What a nightmare, he thought.

Coming over, Scanlan leaned down and put his head into the car. “Feel better?”

“Some.” Presently he asked, “What’s this—the twenty-second time?” Scanlan said, “Twenty-first. Every couple of months ... the same names, same men. I won’t tell you that you’ll get used to it. But at least it won’t surprise you.”

“I don’t see any difference between them and us,” Wilks said, speaking distinctly. “It was like burning up six human beings.”

“No,” Scanlan said. He opened the car door and got into the back seat, behind Wilks. “They only looked like six human beings. That’s the whole point. They want to. They intend to. You know that Barton, Stone, and Leon—”

“I know,” he said. “Somebody or something that lives somewhere out there saw their ship go down, saw them die, and investigated. Before we got there. And got enough to go on, enough to give them what they needed. But—“ He gestured. “Isn’t there anything else we can do with them?”

Scanlan said, “We don’t know enough about them. Only this—sending in of imitations, again and again. Trying to sneak them past us.” His face became rigid, despairing. “Are they crazy? Maybe they’re so different no contact’s possible. Do they think we’re all named Leon and Merriweather and Parkhurst and Stone? That’s the part that personally gets me down… Or maybe that’s our chance, the fact that they don’t understand we’re individuals. Figure how much worse if sometime they made up a—whatever it is… a spore… a seed. But not like one of those poor miserable six who died on Mars—something we wouldn’t know was an imitation…”

“They have to have a model,” Wilks said.

One of the Bureau men waved, and Scanlan scrambled out of the car. He came back in a moment to Wilks. “They say there’re only five,” he said. “One got away; they think they saw him. He’s crippled and not moving fast. The rest of us are going after him—you stay here, keep your eyes open.” He strode off up the alley with the other Bureau men.

Wilks lit a cigarette and sat with his head resting on his arm. Mimicry… everybody terrified. But—

Had anybody really tried to make contact?

Two policemen appeared, herding people back out of the way. A third black Dodge, loaded with Bureau men, moved along at the curb, stopped, and

the men got out.

One of the Bureau men, whom he did not recognize, approached the car.

“Don’t you have your radio on?”

“No,” Wilks said. He snapped it back on.

“If you see one, do you know how to kill it?”

“Yes,” he said.

The Bureau man went on to join his group.

If it was up to me, Wilks asked himself, what would I do? Try to find out what they want? Anything that looks so human, behaves in such a human way, must feel human … and if they—whatever they are—feel human, might they not become human, in time?

At the edge of the crowd of people, an individual shape detached itself and moved toward him. Uncertainly, the shape halted, shook its head, staggered and caught itself, and then assumed a stance like that of the people near it. Wilks recognized it because he had been trained to, over a period of months. It had gotten different clothes, a pair of slacks, a shirt, but it had buttoned the shirt wrong, and one of its feet was bare. Evidently it did not understand the shoes. Or, he thought, maybe it was too dazed and injured.

As it approached him, Wilks raised his pistol and took aim at its stomach. They had been taught to fire there; he had fired, on the practice range, at chart after chart. Right in the midsection … bisect it, like a bug.

On its face the expression of suffering and bewilderment deepened as it saw him prepare to fire. It halted, facing him, making no move to escape. Now Wilks realized that it had been severely burned; probably it would not survive in any case.

“I have to,” he said.

It stared at him, and then it opened its mouth and started to say something.

He fired.

Before it could speak, it had died. Wilks got out as it pitched over and lay beside the car.

I did wrong, he thought to himself as he stood looking down at it. I shot it because I was afraid. But I had to. Even if it was wrong. It came here to infiltrate us, imitating us so we won’t recognize it. That’s what we’re told—we have to believe that they are plotting against us, are inhuman, and will never be more than that.

Thank God, he thought. It’s over.

And then he remembered it wasn’t...

It was a warm summer day, late in July.

The ship landed with a roar, dug across a plowed field, tore through a fence, a shed, and came finally to rest in a gully.

Silence.

Parkhurst got shakily to his feet. He caught hold of the safety rail. His shoulder hurt. He shook his head, dazed.

“We’re down,” he said. His voice rose with awe and excitement. “We’re down!”

“Help me up,” Captain Stone gasped. Barton gave him a hand.

Leon sat wiping a trickle of blood from his neck. The interior of the ship was a shambles. Most of the equipment was smashed and strewn about.

Vecchi made his way unsteadily to the hatch. With trembling fingers, he began to unscrew the heavy bolts.

“Well,” Barton said, “we’re back.”

“I can hardly believe it,” Merriweather murmured. The hatch came loose and they swung it quickly aside. “It doesn’t seem possible. Good old Earth.”

“Hey, listen,” Leon gasped, as he clambered down to the ground. “Somebody get the camera.”