"We wondered that," Maddson said. "The only thing we could think of was that maybe they'd already figured on making for Earth eventually—that had to be the obvious choice. Maybe they were capable of sending a scouting group to stake the place out, but didn't have full-scale mass-transportation capacity yet. Probably they weren't too far away from their goal when they blew it. Perhaps if they'd pooled their marbles at that point instead of starting a crazy war over it, things might have been different."

"Sounds plausible," Hunt agreed. "So Charlie could have been part of a reconnaissance mission sent on ahead, only the opposition had the same idea and they bumped into each other. Then they started blowing holes in our Moon. Disgraceful."

A short silence ensued.

"There's another thing I don't get, either," Hunt said, rubbing his chin.

"What's that?"

"Well, the opposition—the Lambians. Everybody in Navcomms is going around saying that the war that clobbered Minerva was fought between colonists from Earth—that must be Charlie's lot, the Cerians—and an alien race that belonged to Minerva—the Ganymeans, who, from what you said, would be the Lambians. We said a moment ago that this idea of the Cerians being from Earth doesn't make sense, because if they had originated there, they wouldn't be trying to develop space flight. We can't be one hundred percent certain of that because something unusual could have happened, such as the colony being cut off for a few thousand years for some reason. But you can't say that about the Lambians; they couldn't have been neck-and-neck rivals trying to develop space flight."

"They already had it, for sure," Maddson completed for him. "We sure as hell found them on Ganymede."

"Quite. And that ship was no beginner's first attempt, either. You know, I'm beginning to think that whoever the Lambians were, they weren't Ganymeans."

"I think you're right," Maddson confirmed. "The Ganymeans were a totally different biological species. Wouldn't you expect that if they were the opposition in Lambia, somehow it would show up in the Lunarian writings? But it doesn't. Everything we've examined suggests that the Cerians and the Lambians were simply different nations of the same race. For example, we've found extracts from what appear to be Cerian newspapers, which included political cartoons showing Lambian figures; the figures are drawn as human forms. That wouldn't be so if the Lambians looked anything like the Ganymeans must have looked."

"So it appears the Ganymeans had nothing to do with the war," Hunt concluded.

"Right."

"So where do they fit in?"

Maddson showed his empty palms. "That's the funny thing. They don't seem to fit anywhere—at least, we haven't even found anything that looks like a reference to them."

"Maybe they're just a big red herring, then. I mean, we've only supposed that they came from Minerva; nothing actually demonstrates that they did. Perhaps they never had anything to do with the place at all."