he began to speak in a taut, controlled voice.

"Dr. Shalt, I swear to you that was not my voice at the end. I finished with a goodbye. The voice that spoke after that moment of silence was somebody else's voice. It's up to you to find out whose."

"Don't be absurd," said Dr. Shalt, irritably. "That was your voice, your pitch. The voice of your dummy, Spud." He wasn't going to be taken in by any warped sense of humor. Robbie Crawford was the best ventriloquist in America. He was also noted for his practical jokes. "An experiment of this magnitude shouldn't be treated so lightly," he added acidly.

"You've got to believe me!" screamed Crawford. His voice was choked and his pale face was glistening with perspiration. "It was someone else, imitating my ventriloquist voice! I swear it was not me!"

Colonel Meadows sat down abruptly. The technician ran from the booth and returned a moment later with a glass of water. Colonel Meadows motioned for him to give it to Crawford.

The ventriloquist gulped down the water, then went over and sat down beside the Colonel.

"Look," he said quietly. "I'm not joking and I'm not out of my head. It was a shock to hear a voice so like my own, to hear it threaten us, to know that it's traveling from another world. It's like hearing an echo that shouldn't be."

The Colonel exchanged a puzzled look with Dr. Shalt. After a moment the doctor reached down and picked the dummy up and brought it to Crawford.

"Crawford, listen to me." His voice was gentle, sympathetic. "Perhaps you've been working too hard. These USO trips, the rehearsal, the excitement of the last hour. Maybe you forgot what you said, or said more than you recall."

"I remember everything I said," Crawford said quietly. "I stopped when you gave me the signal. That voice came after I stopped. Can't you check—?"

A phone in the back of the control booth rang sharply and Colonel Meadows answered it. He spoke for a few moments, then hung up. "That was the stage manager calling from the main auditorium. You've got ten minutes before the show. How do you feel?"

Crawford blinked in surprise. He had almost forgotten the program. He tried to rise, found his legs trembling.

"He's in no condition to put on a show," said Dr. Shalt. "Better postpone it."

"No, no, I'm okay," protested Crawford, walking around the small floor, exercising his hands. "It's my show. They're waiting for me. Let's get going."

In the car, during the ride to the auditorium, he did not speak. He sat with Spud resting snugly against his chest, drumming his fingers on an arm rest while Colonel Meadows and Dr. Shalt talked, tried to convince him of the invalidity in his reasoning. There was a simple explanation for the voice; either he had forgotten part of his speech or maybe some amateur radio ham had somehow managed to pick up their signal and was playing a joke. He was too intelligent a man to be frightened by such coincidence. They spoke to him reassuringly all during the ride. At the stage door he thanked them, then went inside the auditorium to give his performance.

The ovation that greeted him was tremendous. The orchestra played his theme and an army announcer introduced him as the Number One ventriloquist in the world. He walked out slowly from the wing, waving and grinning at the audience with Spud sitting erect on his arm.

The soldiers roared and whistled as Spud's head spun, drooped and tilted in the opening routine that he was famous for. Crawford stopped in the middle of the stage, rested his foot on a chair that had been provided, sat Spud on his knee. The applause dwindled gradually and the other members of the cast moved into their positions. The army announcer walked forward to engage Crawford in conversation—to feed him questions that would be answered in Spud's high, squeaky voice.

"Hi, Robbie, Spud," said the announcer. "What took you so long getting here?"

It was Spud's answer. All eyes focused on the dummy's face as it