would be all the proof they needed, Ekstrohm knew. Negative results would be positive proof to them. His pink ticket would turn pure red and he would be grounded for life—if he got off without a rehabilitation sentence.

But if nothing happened, it wouldn't really prove anything. There was no way to say that the conditions tonight were identical to the conditions the previous night. What had swept away those bodies might be comparable to a flash flood. Something that occurred once a year, or once in a century.

And perhaps his presence outside was required in some subtle cause-and-effect relationship.

All this test would prove, if the bodies didn't disappear, was only that conditions were not identical to conditions under which they did disappear.

Ryan and Nogol were prepared to accept him, Ekstrohm, as the missing element, the one ingredient needed to vanish the corpses. But it could very well be something else.

Only Ekstrohm knew that it had to be something else that caused the disappearances.

Or did it?

He faced up to the question. How did he know he was sane? How could he be sure that he hadn't stolen and hid the bodies for some murky reason of his own? There was a large question as to how long a man could go without sleep, dreams and oblivion, and remain sane.

Ekstrohm forced his mind to consider the possibility. Could he remember every step he had taken the night before?

It seemed to him that he could remember walking past the creature lying in the grass, then walking in a circle, and coming back to the base. It seemed like that to him. But how could he know that it was true?

He couldn't.

There was no way he could prove, even to himself, that he had not disposed of those alien remains and then come back to his bubble, contented and happy at the thought of fooling those smug idiots who could sleep at night.

"How much longer do we have to wait?" Nogol asked. "We've been here nine hours. Half a day. The bodies are right where I left them outside. There doesn't seem to be any more question."

Ekstrohm frowned. There was one question. He was sure there was one question.... Oh, yes. The question was: How did he know he was sane?

He didn't know, of course. That was as good an answer as any. Might as well accept it; might as well let them do what they wanted with him. Maybe if he just gave up, gave in, maybe he could sleep then. Maybe he could ...

Ekstrohm sat upright in his chair.

No. That wasn't the answer. He couldn't know that he was sane, but then neither could anybody else. The point was, you had to go ahead living as if you were sane. That was the only way of living.

"Cosmos," Ryan gasped. "Would you look at that!"

Ekstrohm followed the staring gaze of the two men.

On the video grid, one of the "dead" animals was slowly rising, getting up, walking away.

"A natural phenomenon!" Ekstrohm said.

"Suspended animation!" Nogol ventured.

"Playing possum!" Ryan concluded.

Now came the time for apologies.

Ekstrohm had been through similar situations before, ever since he had been found walking the corridors at college the night one of the girls had been attacked. He didn't want to hear their apologies; they meant nothing to him. It was not a matter of forgiving them. He knew the situation had not changed.

They would suspect him just as quickly a second time.

"We're supposed to be an exploration team," Ekstrohm said quickly. "Let's get down to business. Why do you suppose these alien creatures fake death?"

Nogol shrugged his wiry shoulders. "Playing dead is easier than fighting."

"More likely it's a method of fighting," Ryan suggested. "They play dead until they see an opening. Then—ripppp."

"I think they're trying to hide some secret," Ekstrohm said.

"What secret?" Ryan demanded.

"I don't know," he answered. "Maybe I'd better—sleep on it."

III

Ryan observed his two crewmen confidently the next morning. "I did some thinking last night."

Great, Ekstrohm thought. For that you should get a Hazardous Duty bonus.

"This business is pretty simple," the captain went on, "these pigs simply play possum. They go into a state of suspended animation, when faced by a strange situation. Xenophobia! I don't see there's much more to it."

"Well, if you don't see that there's more to it, Ryan—" Nogol began complacently.

"Wait a minute," Ekstrohm interjected. "That's a good theory. It may even be the correct one, but where's your proof?"

"Look, Stormy, we don't have to have proof. Hell, we don't even have to have theories. We're explorers. We just make reports of primary evidence and let the scientists back home in the System figure them out."

"I want this thing cleared up, Ryan. Yesterday, you were accusing me of being some kind of psycho who was lousing up the expedition out of pure—pure—" he searched for a term currently in use in mentology—"demonia. Maybe the boys back home will think the same thing. I want to be cleared."

"I guess you were cleared last night, Stormy boy," Nogol put in. "We saw one of the 'dead' pigs get up and walk away."

"That didn't clear me," Ekstrohm said.

The other two looked like they had caught him cleaning wax out of his ear in public.

"No," Ekstrohm went on. "We still have no proof of what caused the suspended animation of the pigs. Whatever caused it before caused it last night. You thought of accusing me, but you didn't think it through about how I could have disposed of the bodies. Or, after you found out about the pseudo-death, how I might have caused that. If I had some drug or something to cause it the first time, I could have a smaller dose, or a slowly dissolving capsule for delayed effect."

The two men stared at him, their eyes beginning to narrow.

"I could have done that. Or either of you could have done the same thing."

"Me?" Nogol protested. "Where would my profit be in that?"

"You both have an admitted motive. You hate my guts. I'm 'strange,' 'different,' 'suspicious.' You could be trying to frame me."

"That's insubordination," Ryan grated. "Accusations against a superior officer ..."

"Come off it, Ryan," Nogol sighed. "I never saw a three-man spaceship that was run very taut. Besides, he's right."

Beet-juice flowed out of Ryan's swollen face. "So where does that leave us?"

"Looking for proof of the cause of the pig's pseudo-death. Remember, I'll have to make counter-accusations against you two out of self-defense."

"Be reasonable, Stormy," Ryan pleaded. "This might be some deep scientific mystery we could never discover in our lifetime. We might never get off this planet."

That was probably behind his thinking all along, why he had been so quick to find a scapegoat to explain it all away. Explorers didn't have to have all the answers, or even theories. But, if they ever wanted to get anyplace in the Service, they damned well better.

"So what?" Ekstrohm asked. "The Service rates us as expendable, doesn't it?"

By Ekstrohm's suggestion, they divided the work.

Nogol killed pigs. All day he did nothing but scare the wart-hogs to death by coming near them.

Ryan ran as faithful a check on the corpses as he could, both by eyeball observation and by radar, video and Pro-Tect circuits. They lacked the equipment to program every corpse for every second, but a representative job could be done.

Finally, Ekstrohm went scouting for Something Else. He didn't know what he expected to find, but he somehow knew he