"Destroy Baxter?" I echoed stupidly. "I was dragged all the way from Earth to do that?"

"Since we are here, and you were there," said the Martian, condescendingly, "what other choice did we have?"

"You could have sent a letter," I muttered.

"Hardly," the Martian said, unperturbed. "Since physical contact between our two dimensions is impossible."

"It is?" I said, surprised.

"Of course!" the Martian snapped. "If it were not, we'd have destroyed Baxter ourselves."

"Why didn't you use the sugarfeet?" I asked, bewildered. "Clatclit seems to have shown no ineptness in disintegrating other Earthmen."

"For the simple reason," said the Martian, with cold anger, "that on your wretchedly humid planet, a sugarfoot would be corroded to death before it could locate him. If, of course, it had already overcome the other obvious difficulties such as getting there, since Earth does not permit immigration of alien species."

Like a hot spark flaring where only ice had been before, a tiny light of hope began to burn in my heart. The Martians, for all their four-dimensional superiority, didn't know that Baxter was on Mars! Hell, why should they? I knew Baxter personally, and I didn't know he was on Mars until he was good and ready to let me know it.

"Jery—" said Snow, about to spill the beans.

"Ixnay, lover!" I growled. "Unless you want these guys tossing in the hand, and switching to Plan C! Remember?"

I hoped she'd recall what had happened to those would-be rebels once the Ancients no longer had a use for them. I could tell, a second later, by her involuntary gasp, that she did.

"What was the import of that exchange?" the Martian asked, fairly smoldering with suspicion. "Your idioms were elusive."

"My woman was about to beg me not to do your will," I lied carefully. "I merely pointed out to her that if I refused, you would simply obliterate us and utilize some other scheme."

"Intelligent thinking, Jery Delvin," said the Martian. For a horrible moment, I thought he meant he'd caught onto my misinterpretation of my words. Then I knew all was well, relatively, as he went on. "As to the method of destruction, we leave it to you to choose. However, haste is of paramount importance to us."

"Excuse me," I interrupted, "but would you answer me one probably idiotic question?"

"If it is within my range of information," said the Martian.

"Well, just why are you so set on getting rid of Baxter? Mind you, I have no overwhelming affection for him myself. But I can't figure your angle."

"The motivation is the usual, basic one. Even you humans follow it: Survival."

"Survival?" I repeated, blinking.

"Philip Baxter possesses the knowledge of the method of our destruction," said the Martian. "That in itself is a bad thing, but he has two more things besides this knowledge that make his removal imperative. He also possesses the means and the intention of using this means."

"What?" said Snow, losing the pedantic thread.

"He means, honey, that Baxter's not only got the knowhow to bump off this bunch, but the wherewithal and the urge."

"You Earthmen have a rather colorful succinctness of speech," the Martian observed.

Snow looked at me for help. "We what?"

I grinned at her despite our situation. "We talk purty," I interpreted. Then turning back to the Martian: "But if there cannot be physical contact between the races, why worry about Baxter? It seems to me that the worst he could do is snub you!"

"I'd better give you a bit more detail."

"Wait a minute." I held up a hand in protest. "If you tell me what Baxter knows then won't I be—"

"A threat to us? No. I do not intend to tell you the specific manner in which we can be destroyed, simply the nature of the destruction."

"All right. What?"

"You're aware, of course, of the geocentric theory of the universe?"

"Mmmm, I've heard of it. Isn't that the theory, once held by people on earth, that the Earth was the center of all creation, and the sun revolved around it, not vice-versa?"

"That is the one. Now, though your race believed it to be a false theory—"

"It is false!" I protested.

"For Earth, yes. But not, you see, for Mars. This place where you now stand, this brief liaison-point between our dimension and yours, is the center of your physical universe."

"You're crazy," I said. "Why, the sun alone is too massive to swing about this planet, let alone everything else! It'd be like a small boy trying to twirl a ten-ton boulder on the end of a rope; even if he managed, somehow, to get it started in motion, within ten seconds it'd be swinging him!"

"And if this small boy had another ten-ton boulder on the other side of him?"

"Well—uh ..."

"And another one above, and below, and in all directions from him? What then?"

I thought it over. "He'd be a mighty tired boy."

"That is not funny."

"It needs work," I admitted.

"Jery Delvin," said the Martian with open irritation, "time is fleeting, and I cannot afford to dally while you play semantic pingpong with my words! Kindly allow me to complete my statement of this situation, or I shall decide by your flippancy that you no longer desire the companionship of your woman!"

That one, I detected by the sudden stiffening of Snow's hand in mine, I didn't need to translate. I shut up.

"This, then," the Martian went on more calmly, "is despite what your scientists say, the center of your universe. If they will but compute the masses, orbits and velocities of all other matter in the universe, they will see that. Or are they yet aware of the universe in its entirety?"

"Not—not quite," I said carefully, not wanting to chance losing Snow. "Our astronomical instruments have a limited sensitivity to light. We see pretty damned far, but there's always something more beyond."

"Very well, then, you'll have to take my word for it. However, if you have properly understood the fact that our dimension exists at the place of Location itself, you will see at once that our only possible point of contact with your universe is at the central, non-moving point."

"I think I see," I said. "If you tried making contact anywhere else, it'd go speeding off from you, so to speak."

"Good. You understand perfectly. What Baxter proposes to do is to break our liaison, thus confining us to our own dimension forever.

"He proposes to do this by detonating a segment of our physical universe, one which coexists with yours. This will produce only the slightest of jolts in our world, but the balance between the two universes is so delicate that even this minor tremor will move us—by moving our contact-material—out of alignment. And we, since we exist in Location, cannot then move ourselves back."

"Would ... uh, would that be so terrible?" I asked nervously. "What do you gain by the contact anyhow?"

"The contact," said the Martian. "It is something we have always had. We don't need it, but we like less the idea of having it arbitrarily taken from us."

"Oh," I said. "I don't suppose you happen to know Baxter's angle in all this? I mean the reason for his urge to destroy you."

"Power," the Martian said simply. "You have heard of the Amnesty, of course?"

"Have I!" I muttered.

"Well, then. You know that the wearer cannot be countermanded by any but the combined veto of the World President and Philip Baxter himself."

"Yes," I said, puzzled.

"Then who, if Philip Baxter were to wear the Amnesty, could countermand him?"

I realized with a shock that no one on the three planets of Earth's domain could, the way the rules were set up.

"But people wouldn't stand for a dictator," I argued. "They'd vote out the power of the Amnesty."

"And if there was no more vote? Jery Delvin, Interplanetary Security is currently the most powerful organization in your world. Its agents possess the most invincible of weapons, the collapser ray-gun. Philip Baxter wields the power, even now. But he desires that it should become known."

"Known?" said Snow uncertainly.

"He means, Snow, that it's no fun being the boss if nobody knows it. The more I think of it, the more I think Baxter can actually get away with it." I returned my attention to the Martian. "If he's held off taking over until you people were unhitched from our universe, then you must be a threat to him!"

"Only in his mind, Jery Delvin. He learned that we exist. He also learned that we had non-Earthly abilities. He decided that we therefore were superior in knowledge of weapons of destruction. One cannot be a successful dictator when another being has more power, or if one thinks such is the case."

"Then you haven't such weapons?"

"We have. But, as I told you, physical contact between our races is impossible." It gave a shrug. "Any attempt on our part to use our weapons would result in that very jolt we are trying so desperately to avoid."

"I get it. You can shoot the charging rhino, but the recoil knocks you off the cliff."

"Overly metaphoric but substantially correct. So you must destroy Baxter for us."

"I'd like nothing better. I can get back to Earth, and alert the president, and maybe get the wheels rolling for an investigation of IS."

"Impossible!" the Martian snapped. "We dare not wait any longer. As yet, Baxter has confided his modus operandi to no one. Once he tells another man, then that man tells a third, and soon we become hopelessly vulnerable. No, the man himself must be destroyed, not just his power. When he dies, the power will die with him if you then tell your story."

"But I can't just walk up to him and kill him," I said.

"Since we are completely aware that you can, I must take it that you mean you will not."

"No, not that, exactly. But look, he's been a stinker, I know, but it's not in my power to destroy a fellow human being in cold blood."

"Then we shall heat your blood, Jery Delvin," the Martian replied. "We will warm it with the racking anger you shall feel against us, knowing that these human children shall perish if you fail!" A cunning light came into the Martian's eyes. "And not only these children," it said. "But your woman as well!"

"No!" I cried, grabbing hold of Snow in both my arms. "I'll do it, but just leave her alone!"

"She stays here with us until you return successful."

"She does not!" I yelled, shaking. "I can't leave the woman I love with a creep that looks to her like a blob of black sparklers! I—"

With cold horror, I realized that my arms were embracing nothingness. Snow was standing, wide-eyed, ten feet away.

"Jery!" she cried, trying to come toward me. Instead, her steps slid over that shimmering metallic blur, and she remained in place.

"We who live in the heart of Location," said the Martian affably, "have a certain mastery over locale."

"You can't do this," I said unreasonably. Because it was quite obvious it was being done. Inexorably.

"Snow—" I said, and couldn't go on. The vision of Snow was moving back from me, or I was moving backward, or both. But the gap between us widened by the second. Then I was back in the rocky red tunnel, the parabolite sphincter narrowing swiftly before my face.

"Be—be careful, Snow!" I called, like an imbecile.

The wall was solid again.

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