"Could well be. But I can't help feeling that . . ."

The chime on Maddson's desk display console interrupted the discussion. He excused himself and touched a button to accept the call.

"Hi, Don," said the face of Hunt's assistant, upstairs in Group L's offices. "Is Vic there?" He sounded excited. Maddson swiveled the unit around to point in Hunt's direction.

"It's for you," he said needlessly.

"Vic," said the face without preamble. "I've just had a look at the reports of the latest tests that came in from Jupiter Four two hours ago. That ship under the ice and the big guys inside it—they've completed the dating tests." He drew a deep breath. "It looks like maybe we can forget the Ganymeans in all this Charlie business. Vic, if all the figures are right, that ship has been sitting there for something like twenty-five million years!"

Chapter Fifteen

Caldwell moved a step closer to inspect more carefully the nine-foot-high plastic model standing in the middle of one of the laboratories of the Westwood Biological Institute. Danchekker gave him plenty of time to take in the details before continuing.

"A full-size replica of a Ganymean skeleton," he said. "Built on the strength of the data beamed back from Jupiter. The first indisputable form of intelligent alien life ever to be studied by man." Caldwell looked up at the towering frame, pursed his lips in a silent whistle, and walked in a slow circle around and back to where the professor was standing. Hunt simply stood and swept his eyes up and down the full length of the model in wordless fascination.

"That structure is in no way related to that of any animal ever studied on Earth, living or extinct," Danchekker informed them. He gestured toward it. "It is based on a bony internal skeleton, walks upright as a biped, and has a head on top—as you can see; but apart from such superficial similarities, it has clearly evolved from completely unfamiliar origins. Take the head as an obvious example. The arrangement of the skull cannot be reconciled in any way with that of known vertebrates. The face has not receded back into the lower skull, but remains a long, down-pointing snout that widens at the top to provide a broad spacing for the eyes and ears. Also, the back of the skull has enlarged to accommodate a developing brain, as in the case of man, but instead of assuming a rounded contour, it bulges back above the neck to counterbalance the protruding face and jaw. And look at the opening through the skull in the center of the forehead; I believe that this could have housed a sense organ that we do not possess—possibly an infrared detector inherited from a nocturnal, carnivorous ancestor."