rn to expect the unexpected, but to me
this was stretching coincidence clear out of joint. We had the latest
zero-interval-transference drive made, and I couldn't believe that any
independent planet-staker could have beaten us here with outmoded
equipment.

"A Terran?" I asked. "Where is he now?"

"Coming up," Gaffa said. "With my fellows."

A couple of dozen other Balakians, looking exactly like him, bore down
on us through the dwarf shrubbery, and with them were two lanky Terrans
dressed in loose shirt-and-drawers ensembles which obviously had been
made on Balak. Even at a distance the Terrans looked disturbingly alike,
and when they got closer I could see that they were identical twins.

"You don't count so good, chum," I said. "I see _two_ Terrans."

"Only one," Gaffa corrected, grinning wider. "The other is one of us."

I didn't believe it, of course. Corelli didn't get it, either; his eyes
had a glazed look, and he was shaking his head like a man with a gnat in
his ear.

One of the Terrans rushed up to us with tears in his eyes and his
Adam's apple bobbing, so overcome with emotion that I was afraid he
might kiss us.

"I'm Ira Haslop," he said in a choked voice. "I've been marooned here
for twenty-two eternal years, and I never thought I'd see a Terran face
again. And now--"

He stopped, but not for breath. The other skinny Terran had grabbed his
arm and swung him around.

"What the hell do you think you're doing, you masquerading nightmare?"
the second one yelled. "_I'm_ Ira Haslop, and you damn well know it! If
you think you're going to pass yourself off as me and go home to Earth
in my place...."

The first Haslop gaped at him for a moment; then he slapped the other's
hand off his arm and shook a bony fist in his face.

"So that's your game! That's why these grinning freaks made you look
like me and threw us together all these years--they've planned all along
to ring in a switch and send you home instead of me! Well, it won't
work!"

* * * * *

The second Haslop swung on him then and the two of them went to the mat
like a pair of loose-drawered tigers, cursing and gouging. The grinning
natives separated them after a moment and examined them carefully for
damage, chattering away with great satisfaction in their own language.

Corelli and Gibbons and I stared at each other like three fools. It was
impossible to think that either of the two men could be anything bu