driver, overtipped him--I was really upset--and ran up the stairs. In
the apartment, I hustled to the two by four kitchen and, with
unshakable determination, I poured myself a four-finger snort of
scotch.

Then I groaned and poured it down the sink. Unshakable determination is
all very well--but when the top of your head seems to rip loose like a
piece of stubborn adhesive coming off a hairy chest and bounces, hard,
against the ceiling, then all you can do is give up. I stumbled out to
the front room and slumped down in my easy chair to think.

I'd left the door open and I was sitting in a draft.

So I had to--that compulsion--go close the door. _Then_ I sat down to
think.

Anyway I _thought_ I sat down to think. But, suddenly, my thoughts were
not my own.

I wasn't producing them; I was receiving them.

"Barth! Oh, Land of Barth. Do you read us, oh Barthland? Do you read
us?"

I didn't hear that, you understand. It wasn't a voice. It was all
thoughts inside my head. But to me they came in terms of words.

I took it calmly. Surprisingly, I was no longer upset--which, as I
think it over, was probably more an achievement of internal engineering
than personal stability.

"Yeah," I said, "I read you. So who in hell--" a poor choice of
expression--"are you? What are you doing here? Answer me that." I
didn't have to say it, the thought would have been enough. I knew that.
But it made me feel better to speak out.

"We are Barthians, of course. We are your people. We live here."

"Well, you're trespassing on private property! Get out, you hear me?
Get out!"

"Now, now, noble Fatherland. Please, do not become upset and
unreasonable. We honor you greatly as our home and country. Surely we
who were born and raised here have our rights. True, our forefathers
who made the great voyage through space settled first here in a
frightful wilderness some four generations back. But we are neither
pioneers nor immigrants. We are citizens born."

"Invaders! Squatters!"

"Citizens of Barthland."

"Invaded! Good Lord, of all the people in the world, why me? Nothing
like this ever happened to anyone. Why did I have to be picked to be a
territory--the first man to have queer things living in me?"

"Oh, please, gracious Fatherland! Permit us to correct you. In the day
of our fathers, conditions were, we can assure you, chaotic. Many
horrible things lived here. Wild beasts and plant growths of the most
vicious types were eve