e me more, or
less, than a man?

_Both_, said the secret voice. _Their minds are still closed to you.
Only our minds--we who have changed too--are open._

"Who are you?" asked Hyrst.

_My name is Shearing. Now listen. When you are released, they'll bring
you down here to Mars. I'll be waiting for you. I'll help you._

"Why? What do you care about me, or a murder fifty years old?"

_I'll tell you why later_, said the whisper of Shearing. _But you must
follow my guidance. There's danger for you, Hyrst, from the moment
you're released! There are those who have been waiting for you._

"Danger? But--"

The door opened, and Hyrst's visitor came in. He was a man something
over sixty but the deep lines in his face made him look older. His face
was gray and drawn and twitching, but it became perfectly rigid and
white when he came to the foot of the bed and looked at Hyrst. There was
rage in his eyes, a rage so old and weary that it brought tears to them.

"You should have stayed dead," he said to Hyrst. "Why couldn't they let
you stay dead?"

Hyrst was shocked and startled. "Who are you? And why--"

The other man was not even listening. His eyelids had closed, and when
they opened again they looked on naked agony. "It isn't right," he said.
"A murderer should die, and stay dead. Not come back."

"I didn't murder MacDonald," Hyrst said, with the beginnings of anger.
"And I don't know why you--"

He stopped. The white, aging face, the tear-filled, furious eyes, he did
not quite know what there was about them but it was there, like an old
remembered face peeping up through a blur of water for a moment, and
then withdrawing again.

After a moment, Hyrst said hoarsely, "What's your name?"

"You wouldn't know it," said the other. "I changed it, long ago."

Hyrst felt a cold, and it seemed that he could not breathe. He said,
"But you were only eleven--"

He could not go on. There was a terrible silence between them. He must
break it, he could not let it go on. He must speak. But all he could say
was to whisper, "I'm not a murderer. You must believe it. I'm going to
prove it--"

"You murdered MacDonald. And you murdered my mother. I watched her age
and die, spending every penny, spending every drop of her blood and
ours, to get you back again. I pretended for fifty years that I too
believed you were innocent, when all the time I knew."

Hyrst said, "I'm innocent." He tried to say a name, too, but he could
not spea