They stood in an alcove that was half filled with banks of controls and instruments. The alien stood before these controls and glared at them purposefully as they came through the teletransmitter. His neck was dark with dried blood, and the three arrows still protruded from his side. His stooping posture gave more evidence than before that he was growing weaker.
As they came through and caught sight of him and the others, one of his hands moved on the control panel, then paused.
_Don't do that!_--came a sharp command into his mind.
He straightened up suddenly, his single eye brightening in shocked surprise as he looked first at Henry, then at Martia.
Valerie, Peggy and Uncle Andy watched the alien, white-faced, uncomprehendingly, as he slowly turned to face them squarely, his eye fairly glittering with inner lights of its own. Then--without warning--he uttered a few unintelligible words, groaned, and fell on his face.
"Quick!" said Uncle Andy. "The gun!" He ran, himself, to pluck it out of Scarface's nerveless fingers.
"But what happened!" exclaimed Valerie. "Is he dead?" She and Peggy did not follow Henry and Martia as they went over to look at the alien.
"Henry," whispered Martia. "What _are_ we? I know what you did!"
Henry paused to look at her. "Martia, Lady Dewitt is not really your mother--_is_ she?"
"You know there are no secrets between us," he insisted.
"No," she answered. "I am an orphan, like you."
"An orphan equipped with photographic memory and extra-sensory perception," he said, rapidly. "Also, other things, like extended perception in time. You have lately come to sense that your mind was 'fixed,' long ago, to keep you from using your full powers and to prevent you from knowing who or _what_ you were, but these recent experiences have started an awakening process--"
His eyes bored into hers, his nostrils flaring in his tense excitement. "Shall I tell you where you were really born?" He turned his head and looked down. "Wait! He's beginning to stir! _He_ can give us the final answer!"
As the alien stirred, one of the tendrils on his wrist twirled a control on the panel at his waist. Martia swayed, but Henry stood his ground, blocking that telepathic signal and showing Martia how to do it at the same time. But Valerie and Peggy and Uncle Andy dropped to the floor, unconscious.