Forbes remained motionless. "Simple as one, you know. Put men on rockets
going back to Earth in place of returning colonists. Study. Observe.
Learn. Shift a record here and there. Forge, change pictures, all that
sort of thing. Poor contact between here and Earth, you know. Not too
difficult."
"I'll get one of you," Heidel said, still balancing his pistol tightly.
"Well, possibly," Forbes said. "But no more than one. You have three
guns pointed at you. We can see you perfectly, you know, as though it
were broad daylight. One shiver of that pistol, and you're dead."
"Why have you done this?" Heidel said suddenly. "_Why?_ Everything that
was done was for the Martian. We tried to give you freedom and culture,
the benefit of our knowledge...."
"We didn't like your wrestlers," Forbes said.
Heidel's nostrils twitched, and suddenly he swung the pistol. There was
a crashing explosion and then silence.
"Good," said Forbes. "I don't think he got the last one fired."
"You're all right then?" asked Meehan, putting his gun on the table.
"Oh, quite! Rather dramatic altogether, eh?"
"Nerve tingling," Locke agreed.