Ker, a trifle apprehensive, yet had the presence of mind to pull out a wad of black waste and block the view port.

Jonnie and Angus went right to work. They persuaded Ker to put his head on the mineral analysis plate. He did but he kept rolling his amber eyes up at them sideways as though he thought they were a bit crazy. He recalled the machine's use on Jonnie and he tried to tell them he had never been shot in the head much.

They worked. Angus had become very expert in adjusting these machines and he twiddled knobs for different depth settings and focuses. Ker was getting a crick in his back bending over and said so. They shushed him. They turned his head in every direction on the plate. At the end of a sweating thirty-five minutes they let him up.

Ker stood there rubbing his neck and trying to get his spine straight again.

Jonnie looked at him. “Tell us about your birth, Ker.”

Ker thought this was a bit mad. He opened his mouth to speak and then glanced at the door. He took a device out of his pocket and plunked it against the area beside the view port. It had a little light sphere on it and would tell them whether anyone was standing outside. Angus checked the intercom set into the panel and turned it off.

“Well,” said Ker, “I was born of wealthy parents-”

“Oh, come on, Ker,” said Jonnie. “Truth, we want the truth, not some fairy tale!”

Ker looked a little offended. He sighed in a martyred fashion. He took out a miniature box-flask of kerbango and chewed off a small piece. He needed that. He hunkered down against the wall and began all over again.

“I was born of wealthy parents on Psychlo," said Ker. “The father was named Ka. It was a very proud family. His first female gave birth to a litter. Usually a Psychlo litter is four pups, sometimes five. In this case it was six. Well, it often happens that when there's that many pups, one of them is a runt– not enough space in the female organs or something.

“So anyway, I was the sixth pup and a runt. Not wanting the family disgraced, they threw me out in the garbage, that being the usual treatment for such.

“A family slave, for his own reasons, fished me out and took me away. He was a member of an underground revolutionary organization. There are miles of abandoned mine shafts under the imperial City and slaves escape into them and nobody can keep them policed, so there I was. Maybe that's why I’m at home in the mines. The slaves were of the Balfan race, blue-colored people. They aren't exactly ordinary-looking-they can breathe breathe-gas, the Psychlo atmosphere, and don't have to wear masks and so they can be seen easily in the streets. Maybe they had an idea they needed a Psychlo of their own to plant bombs or something. But anyway, they brought me up and trained me to steal things for them. I could slip in and out of small places, being so small.

“When I was about eight, which is pretty young for a Psychlo, an Imperial Bureau of Investigation agent named Jayed infiltrated the group with what they call agents provocateurs, to provoke them to commit big crimes so they could be arrested. The I.B.I. raided the underground after a while.

“Being small, I got out through an old ventilator shaft. I was hungry after that and just wandering in the streets. So I found a small window in back of a goo-food ship; it was too small to be barred for no normal Psychlo could get in. So I crawled through and tripped an alarm system– a fact that encouraged me later to learn all about such things.”

Ker paused and took another small chew of kerbango. Actually it was a welcome break for him: one can't handle kerbango wearing a breathe-mask for you can't spit out the small grainy residue. It was kind of a relief to him as well. He'd never told the story before.

“Anyway,” Ker continued, “they tried me and found me guilty and sentenced me to be branded with the three bars of denial and a century of service in the imperial pits. There I was, eight years old, at hard labor with hard criminals.

“I was too small to fit any of their shackles so they just let me run around and that's why I haven't any shackle marks on my ankles. I don't have to be careful when I take off my boots.

“Because I was foot-loose (ha-ha), the older criminals could use me to carry illegal messages between the chain gangs and cells and they educated me pretty thoroughly in crime.

“When I was about fifteen, there was a plague hit the pits and a lot of guards died, and having no shackles I escaped.

“By this time I knew my business, even though fifteen is pretty young for a Psychlo. Being small, I could get in and out of windows and cubbyholes nobody thought to bar and I collected myself a lot of ready cash.

“I bought false identity papers, bribed an Intergalactic Mining Company personnel clerk, and got myself employed as a shaft man because I could get in and out of small places.

“I served in various systems for the company and have somehow gotten along for the last twenty-five years. I’m only forty-one and a Psychlo lives to be about one hundred ninety, so I got one hundred forty-nine years to go. The immediate problem is how I plan to spend it (ha-ha).”

“Thank you,” said Jonnie. “What leverage does Terl have on you?”

“That ape? None now. He did have, but not now. None. Praise the devils!”

“Were you ever trained in math?” asked Jonnie.

Ker laughed. “No, I’m dummy at it. All I am is a practical engineer– no education but experience...and crime of course.”

“Do you like cruelty, Ker?”

The midget Psychlo hung his head. He looked ashamed in the reflected light from the machine. “As long as I’m being honest, which is a novelty I can tell you, I have to pretend to like cruelty, to get my fun out of hurting things. Otherwise other Psychlos would consider me abnormal! But...no, I don't like it, I’m sorry to say.” He roused himself. “Say, Jonnie, what's all this about?”

Angus and Jonnie looked at each other. This Psychlo didn't have any objects in his head. None at all!

But Jonnie was not going to let go of vital data. Ker didn't know about such objects and probably very few

Psychlos did. “You've got a different skull structure from other Psychlos,” said Jonnie. “You are completely different.”

Ker jerked into alertness. “Is that a fact? Well, well. I often felt there was some difference.” He became pensive. “Psychlos don't like me. And actually I don't like them. I’m glad to have the reason.”

Jonnie and Angus were very relieved about their test. They didn't want Ker attacking them and committing suicide when he realized they were seeking the answer to the riddle of teleportation.

They were just gathering up their gear when the telltale on the door flashed. Somebody was just outside.

Ker got on his breathe-mask. He tiptoed over to the machine and picked it up, using only one arm. Then he tiptoed over to the door and suddenly swung it open as though walking out.

A wave of breathe-gas burst out of the room.

Lars was standing there, frozen in the act of attaching a listening device to the door. He wore no air mask.

The invisible puff of breathe-gas hit Lars full in the face.

He must have been in the act of taking a breath at that moment for he rose on his toes like someone being strangled.

He gagged. He reeled back. He fought for air. He started to turn blue. In another few seconds he would start into convulsions.

Jonnie and Angus grabbed him, one on each arm, and rushed him back to clearer air. Angus fanned him with a metal plate he'd found on the floor.

Gradually Lars came back to life. The blue tinge faded. But what he said was, “What were you doing in there?” and he said it angrily.

“Now, now, laddie,” said Angus soothingly. “Here we are saving of your life and ye're making mean sounds. Tch. Tch."