"Well, just offhand, Tarleton, I'd say a medical or life-study lab is a lot easier to move than the stuff it's going to take to check out this ship. And if anything goes wrong, like maybe blowing up the whole schmeer, you

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want a lot of empty country around. You're not going to find that in Maryland."

Tarleton looked at him obliquely. "Speaking of things blowing up, how about that button in your pocket? The three-hundred-mile-crater button you mentioned earlier?"

Barton grinned sheepishly. "No such animal," he ad- mitted. "All it was. those fogheads had a lot of guns aimed at me and I didn't like it." He was surprised to see the shudder that shook Tarleton; he hadn't realized the man had been so tense under his slow easygoing ex- terior. "I'm sorry," Barton said. "I'd have said some- thing before, but I forgot all about it."

"That's OK," the big man said. "Let's get to work figuring things out" He ran Barton through the high points of his story again; he got on the phone to D.C.

several times. He even questioned Siewen briefly, though it was obvious he would have felt as much at ease inter- viewing a giant grasshopper. *

Then it was time for another meal. Afterward Barton was really and truly pooped out of his mind. It was hard to tell a coherent story, leaving out the hallucinations, and Barton figured, he'd better not tell anybody about that part. Not ever.

Some improvised quarters in kit form had arrived by truck and were in process of assembly, but Barton said the hell with that. "We'll sleep on the ship. I'm used to it, and the guards can make aure nobody goes sleepwalk- ing."

Tarleton didn't like the idea too well, so Barton showed him the locking device he'd removed from the ship.

"Here, these are the keys to the car. You hold 'em for tonight." He looked the other man in the eyes. "I guess you know what this means: I have to trust you a lot. I wouldn't want anyone else, like that Parkhurst, to get his hands on the gadget OK?" Tarleton nodded, and Barton shepherded his charges aboard for the night. After eight years or so, that was Barton's first day back on Earth.

The next few days were hectic but inconclusive. Quar- ters were erected for the research people who were be- ing moved in, as well as for Barton and his entourage.

There was a hassle the second day when Limila refused to be quartered anywhere at all away from Barton; they settled En a two-bedroom unit not far from Siewen and Whosits and the two Demu. The latter had a larger unit.

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built much the same. Except that there was no guard on Barton's quarters.

Portable lab buildings were brought to the site, and truckloads of gear with which to equip them. The ship itself. Barton at the controls, was moved to the vicinity of a complex of buildings about five kilometers away, be- hind a low range of bills. Fat lot of good that would do, Barton thought, but kept his reservations to himself.

And eventually General Parkhurst trundled his guns and tanks back to the nearby Army base he commanded.

Trickles of response began to come in from the out- side world. Barton's fingerprints were verified, and Dok- tor Siewen's; Whosits* were not on file in any country lending cooperation. Barton hoped no one had wasted much effort looking for Limila's.

Barton got a post-mortem on his own former personal life. His father had died five years ago, and his mother a few months -later; he had no siblings or other close rela- tives. Seven, years after his disappearance Barton had been declared legally dead. His ex-wife and her new hus- band were living well, helped somewhat by his estate, since fais paintings had gradually become popular enough to be valuable. His ex-mistress, Leonie, had mar- ried and gained four children, plus ten or fifteen pounds of weight for each of them.

Well, it was all pretty much as he'd expected. Par for the course. Barton could find no emotional reaction in himself; it was as though his former life were someone els&'s-a total stranger's.

Tarleton assured him that while his estate was legally out of reach, a grateful government would see to his fi- nancial well-being. Barton would believe that when he saw it, but the keys to the car were in his own pockets again and he hadn't signed anything yet, he reminded himself. He requested a small safe for his bedroom and set his own combination; the keys were secure enough for now.

Idly, once, he guessed at the value of the Demu ship in terms of ransom for the planet Earth. Then he shrugged, and moved a mental decimal point four places to the left. He'd be lucky to get a dime over living expenses and a consultant fee, but no harm in trying. Besides, he wanted to see the chintzy bastards sweat when he hit *em with the big numbers. Just for kicks; he hadn't had many of those in the past eight years.

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Doktor Siewen's middle-aged son and daughter sent their kindest personal regards. They were so glad their father was alive and safe, but Barton noticed they didn't offer to visit him or vice versa. He suspected they'd seen those first news pies, before the government had sup- pressed the story. Siewen didn't seem to notice, or care.

And still there was no word on Whosits. Maybe Sie- wen had been wrong; maybe Whosits wasn't of Earth ori- gin after alL Well, who cared? Not Barton, for surel

Tarleton filled him in on what Earth knew of the Demu, the "Raiders."

"The ship that got you was spotted on radar, but no- body believed it. It was too big." Barton gave him an estimate of the size of the larger ships he'd seen at the Demu research station. Tarleton said the radar bad shown something a lot bigger. Barton wondered if the protective shield could have bollixed the readings. Tarle- ton shrugged. "We can check that out when it's time for you to fly this one for us next." That was OK. with Bar- ton.

"We have no idea how many people that ship took,"

Tarleton continued, "because every day, all over the world, people disappear. Some are murdered, some are accidents and suicides, some disappear deliberately.

But the best estimate is that the Demu got at least sev- eral hundred."

Barton looked surprised. Tarleton raised his eyebrows.

"Well, of course," he said. "you 'saw only the people- including those not of this planet-in your own, er, cage.

A ship of the size you indicate could have contained many such.

"The Raiders, the Demu, have been back twice since then." That too was news to Barton, though he'd guessed something of the sort when he first heard the term "Raid- ers." "Once about four years ago; they must have taken over a thousand that time. And then roughly two years later." Tarleton smiled grimly. "That time we were ready, or thought we were. With the high-G rockets and warheads, like the ones thrown at you when you came in. The Pentagon still claims they got that ship, but judg- ing from the results with yours I'd guess the Demu were merely startled and cautious, and withdrew for the time being.

"Well, with luck and a good analysis of your ship,

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Barton, we may be in a considerably better position to handle them, next time they turn up."

Barton nodded. That was what he had in mind. For starters.

Research got under way so unobtrusively that Barton hardly noticed how quickly it developed. On the ship and its weapons, on the Demu, on Siewen and Limila and Whosits. And then, as he had known it must, on Barton.

The physical exams were all right. He was organically sound, he was told, and had been living with a lower background-radiation level than Earth's. He took the offer to have his lumpy arm rebroken and set to heal straight;

he had it done with a shoulder block rather than a gen- eral anesthetic. The cast was light and didn't bother him half as much as the unset break had for so long.

His teeth needed some work. All right; dental care was available at Parkhurst's Army base. Novocaine though, not gas.

He was questioned repeatedly and in detail, by persons and teams of several specialties. Considering that he had to edit a number of important details out of his experi- ences, he told a fairly straight story. What he omitted was of a personal nature, mostly: the two mutilated women who had successively shared his cage, and some of his stronger reactions both before and after escaping. And of course, any mention of self-hypnosis or hallucination.

The only mental irregularities he admitted were the tem- porary memory-loss effects of the Demu sleep gun.

He had devised, he thought, a fairly credible explana- tion of his escape: that in the absence of any better idea he'd formed the habit of lying on the food-service area of the floor after meals, and that once, finally, the thing had malfunctioned and let him through.

Everyone bought it, except the psychology boys. Dr.

Roderick Skinner, acting head of the branch in the ab- sence of a Dr. Fox, called on Barton one afternoon.

Limila was elsewhere, being interviewed. Skinner carried a briefcase, from which he extracted an untidy clip- board. "Barton, 111 tell you frankly that I'm not yet sat- isfied with the total picture." Barton waved him to a chair.

"Yeh, well, sit down. Be with you in a minute." He went to the kitchen, opened a can of beer. He thought for a moment and decided what the hell, he might as

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