“Where’d you come from?” the boy whispered. “You fall out of an airplane?”

Mirtin let the awkward question slide past. I need food… water…”

“Yeah. What should I do, call the chief? They can send a truck out. Take you to the hospital in Albuquerque, maybe.”

Mirtin tensed. Hospital? Internal examination? He couldn’t risk it. Let an Earthman doctor shine one of their radiation machines through his body and see what was coiled within it, and the game was up. He was pledged to die first.

Shaping his words with care, Mirtin said, “Could you bring me food out here? Something to drink? Help me into that cave, maybe? Just until I’m all right.”

There was a long silence.

Then — a lucky stab, an intuitive leap, perhaps? — the boy narrowed his mouth and made a whistling sound and said, “Hey, I know! You fell off the flying saucer!”

It was a direct hit, and Mirtin flinched. He hadn’t been prepared for anything like that. Automatically he said, “Flying saucer? No … No, not a flying saucer. I was riding in a car. There was an accident. 1 was thrown from it.”

“Where’s the car, then?”

Mirtin’s eyes looked toward the gully. “Down there, I suppose. I don’t know. I was unconscious.”

“There isn’t any car. You couldn’t drive anything in here. Look, you came off that flying saucer, mister. You aren’t fooling me. What planet you from, huh? How come you look so much like Earthpeople there?”

Mirtin felt like laughing. There was so much intelligence in the pinched, angular little face, such a keen, skeptical mind behind those shining eyes. He liked the boy tremendously. Just a shabby child, who didn’t even speak English very well, and yet Mirtin could sense a potential within him, a spark of something. He wished he could be honest with the boy and drop this elaborate facade of lies.

Mirtin said, “Can you bring me food? Something to drink?”

“You mean, bring it to you out here?”

“Yes. If I could just stay in that cave — until I’m well again—”

“But I could get help from the pueblo. We’d take you to a hospital.”

“I don’t want to go to a hospital. I just want to stay out here… alone.”

Silence for a moment.

The boy said, “You don’t look like a jailbird. You aren’t running away. So why don’t you want the hospital? You in this funny suit. And you talk kind of funny, around the edges. Come on, mister. What planet you from? Mars? Saturn? You can trust me. I don’t get along so good with the pueblo, nohow. I help you, you help me. Yeah?”

Mirtin saw his opportunity. Why not confide in the boy? After all, he wasn’t under any binding oath to keep all Earthmen in ignorance of his extraterrestrial origin. He had to use his judgment about that. He might have more to gain by telling the truth to the smudge-faced boy, and getting help that way, than by maintaining secrecy. Especially if the only alternatives were to die out here or to go to a hospital and have his secret discovered by those most likely to expose it widely.

“Can I trust you?” Mirtin asked.

“You help me, I’ll help you. Sure.”

“All right. I baled out of a watcher ship. A saucer. You saw it explode last night?”

“You bet I did!”

“Well, that was me. Us. I landed here. I’m hurt — a broken back. It’ll take me a long time to get well. But if you take care of me, and bring me food and water, and don’t tell anybody I’m out here, I’ll be all right. And then I’ll try to help you, anything you want. But you mustn’t tell anyone about this.”

“You think anybody would believe me, anyway? A flying saucer man out in the desert? I won’t tell.”

“Good. What’s your name?”

“Charley Estancia. San Miguel tribe. I got two sisters Lupe and Rosita, and two brothers. They’re all dopes. What’s your name?”

“Mirtin.”

Charley repeated it. “That’s all? Just Mirtin?*

“That’s all.”

“What does it mean?”

“It’s a coded pattern of sound. It includes information on the place of my birth, the names of the members of my parent-group, and my vocational skills. There’s a lot packed into those two syllables.”

“So how come you look like an Earthman, Mirtin?”

“It’s a disguise. I’m different inside. That’s why I don’t want to go to a hospital.”

“They’d X-ray you and find out, huh?”

“Right.”

“What are you like inside?”

“You’d say I was plenty strange. I’ll try to tell you what I’m like. Later.”

“Will you show me?”

“I can’t do that,” said Mirtin. “My disguise — doesn’t come off that easily, Charley. It’s part of me. But I’ll tell you what’s underneath it, when we have time. I’ll tell you all about it.”

“You speak English pretty good.”

“I’ve had a long time to study it. I’ve been assigned to Earth since—” he paused, calculating “—since 1972. Ten years.”

“You speak any other languages? Spanish?”

“Pretty well.”

“What about Tewa? That’s my pueblo language. You know that?”

“I’m afraid not,” Mirtin confessed.

The boy exploded with laughter. “That’s okay! Because we don’t know it so good ourselves. The old people, they think they can say things in Tewa, but they don’t really understand each other anymore. They just think so, but they’re fooling themselves. It’s pretty funny. Hey, you from Saturn? Neptune?”

“I’m from a different solar system,” Mirtin said. “Far from here. From a planet that goes around another star. You know what a solar system is? And stars and planets? This is a planet right here, this Earth, and there are other—”

“You think I’m a dumb Indian?” Charley Estancia said hotly. I know stars and planets. And galaxies and nebulas. The whole deal. I’m no dope. I can read. They got a library truck, it comes around even to a pueblo. Where you from? When the stars come out tonight, point to it.”

“I can’t point to anything, Charley. I can’t lift my arm. Paralyzed.”

“It’s that bad, huh?”

“For now. I’ll get better, if you take care of me. But I’ll show you where to look, tonight. You can see the three bright stars, right in a row.”

“You mean, Orion’s belt?”

Pausing, Mirtin considered the constellations as seen from Earth. “Yes. That’s the one.”

“And that’s were you from?”

“That’s were I’m from. The fifth planet of the star on the eastern end. It’s a long way from here.”

“And you came all the way from there in a flying saucer?”

Mirtin smiled. “In a watcher ship, yes. To patrol Earth. And tonight our ship exploded. We got free just in time, and this is where I landed. I don’t know about the other two.”

The boy was silent, staring at him, the gleaming eyes picking out details of Mirtin’s suit, searching Mirtin’s face perhaps for some hint of alienness. At length Charley said, “I don’t know who crazier. You for telling, me for believing.”

“Don’t you think it’s the truth?”

“I don’t know. What should I do? Take a knife and cut you open, see what’s inside?”

I’d rather you didn’t”

The boy laughed in his explosive way. “Don’t worry, I won’t. It all sounds so crazy, though. A flying saucer man dropping right here. Look, you got to tell me what it’s like out there, huh? You talk, I listen, then I’ll know if it’s real. I can tell if you fooling me. I’ll get you into that cave, and then you’ll talk to me about the stars. I got to know everything. I never been away from home, and you’re from a planet. You’re going to tell me, okay?”

“Okay,” Mirtin said.

“Now we got to get you into that cave, though. Then I’ll get you something to eat, drink. The pueblo isn’t far. Will it hurt if I help you stand up? You could lean on me.”

“That won’t work. My legs are paralyzed too. You’ll have to pull me along the ground.”

“Drag you by the arms? With you hurt bad like this? You won’t like that. Hey, I got a better idea, Mirtin. I’ll put you on a stretcher. It’s better that way.”

Mirtin watched as the boy leaped up, pulling a hunting knife from a sheath at his side, and began to slash at the nearby vegetation. He cut two slim poles from a scrawny tree, pruned away the branches, and started to hack at the stems of scrubby gray-green plants growing low to the ground. His face was set tight in concentration, lips clamped. The boy’s fingers moved rapidly, weaving a network of fibers between the two poles. The sight fascinated Mirtin. It was so primitive, and yet so efficient!