the bird didn't leave.

"Stop it!" the Leader commanded impatiently. "We've more import ..."

He checked himself, and turned back to stare wonderingly at the bird,
which peered back at him with apparently unfrightened, beady eyes,
turning its head to first one side and then the other, as though better
to see all that was going on.

"That's peculiar," His Highness said thoughtfully. "I never saw a bird
act like that before. Hmmm, I wonder?... But no, that's absurd."

He turned back to Hanlon's body as though disgusted with himself for
entertaining such a fantastic notion. Hands behind his back, that scowl
of concentration engraving deep lines on his face, the Leader paced
forth and back across the floor of the little room, his glance ever and
again returning to stare in exasperation at that slumped-over,
dead-but-alive body.

Who was this amazing young man? What sort of talents and abilities did
he possess, that he could react thus to a truth-serum? Had he been so
treated by the Corps experts that his mind would be blanked out in such
emergencies? Was he some kind of a mutant with powers never before
known? Or--startling thought--was he actually a human being at all?

Better than anyone else, His Highness could appreciate the fact that the
universe contained many types of sentient and highly mental life other
than those originating on Terra. Since he had come here to Simonides,
and had wormed his way into the very highest position beneath its
emperor--a weak old man he had had no trouble dominating--he was
naturally suspicious of anyone who might be attempting to discover and
wreck his carefully-laid plans.

Such a one, he was now convinced, was this young Hanlon. It would be the
simplest thing to kill this almost-dead body now, but that would not
solve this baffling problem. If Hanlon, perhaps others of the Corps had
similar powers. No, one with such abilities must not be killed. He must
be kept and studied, and the secret learned if possible.

But his thoughts were interrupted by Panek. "That fool bird's still
there, still there. Is it another of your pets, Boss?"

His Highness wheeled. He had forgotten the bird. Was it possible that
Hanlon had, in some inexplicable manner, transferred ... on the surface
it was an absurd concept. But, there were magicians on his home planet
who could do things almost as unfathomable.

He suddenly made up his mind. "Kill it!" he commanded.

Whatever else he was or was not,