Steve sat bolt upright, his eyes wide.

“Easy.” Jim's gray eyes were concerned.

Steve blinked up at him. “What happened?” he asked, and discovered how hoarse he was.

Jim sat down in one of the chairs. “You tell me. We tried to get to the control room when the ship started moving. Why didn't you ring the strap-down? You turned off the drive just as Ann came through the door. Then you fainted.”

“How about the other ship?” Steve tried to repress the urgency in his voice, and couldn't.

“Some of the others are over there now, examining the wreckage.” Steve felt his heart stop. “I guess I was afraid from the start that alien ship was dangerous. I'm more psychist than emdee, and I qualified for history class, so maybe I know more than is good for me about human nature. Too much to think that beings with space travel will automatically be peaceful. I tried to think so, but they aren't. They've got things any self-respecting human being would be ashamed to have nightmares about. Bomb missiles, fusion bombs, lasers, that induction injector they used on us. And antimissiles. You know what that means? They've got enemies like themselves, Steve. Maybe nearby.”

“So I killed them.” The room seemed to swoop around him, but his voice came out miraculously steady.

“You saved the ship.”

“It was an accident. I was trying to get us away.”

“No, you weren't.” Davis' accusation was as casual as if he were describing the chemical makeup of urea. “That ship was four hundred miles away. You would have had to sight on it with a telescope to hit it. You knew what you were doing, too, because you turned off the drive as soon as you'd burned through the ship.”

Steve's back muscles would no longer support him. He flopped back to horizontal. “All right, you know,” he told the ceiling. “Do the others?”

“I doubt it. Killing in self-defense is too far outside their experience. I think Sue's guessed.”