Thinking about what has happened on Minerva and wondering if, after all this, our children will live on a sunnier world—and if they do, if they will ever know what we did.

Thinking about things I've never really thought about before. There should be better ways for people to spend their lives than in factories, mines, and army camps. Can't think what, though—that's all we've ever known. But if there is warmth and color and light somewhere in this Universe, then maybe something worthwhile will come out of what we've been through.

Too much thinking for one day. Must sleep for a while now.

Hunt found he had read right through to the end, absorbed in the pathos of those final days. His voice had fallen to a sober pitch. A long silence ensued.

"Well, that's it," he concluded, a little more briskly. "Did you notice that bit right at the end? In the last few lines he was talking about seeing the surface of Minerva again. Now, they might have used telescopes earlier on, but in the situation he was in there, they'd hardly be lugging half an observatory along with them, would they?"

Maddson's assistant looked thoughtful. "How about that periscope video gadget that was in the helmet?" he suggested. "Maybe there's something wrong in the translation. Couldn't he be talking about seeing a transmission through that?"

Hunt shook his head. "Can't see it. I've heard of people watching TV in all sorts of funny places, but never halfway up a bloody mountain. And another thing: He described it as sitting up above the ridge. That implies it's really out there. If it were a view on video, he'd never have worded it that way. Right, Don?"

Maddson nodded wearily. "Guess so," he said. "So, where do we go from here?"

Hunt looked from Maddson to the assistant and back again. He leaned his elbows on the edge of the table and rubbed his face and eyeballs with his fingers. Then he sighed and sat back.

"What do we know for sure?" he asked at last. "We know that those Lunarian spaceships got to our Moon in under two days. We know that they could accurately aim a weapon, sited on our Moon, at a Minervan target. We also know that the round trip for electromagnetic waves was much shorter than it could possibly have been talking about the right place. Finally, we can't prove but we think that Charlie could stand on our Moon and see quite clearly the surface features of Minerva. Well, what does that add up to?"

"There's only one place in the Universe that fits all those numbers," Maddson said numbly.