The trail behind this rapid succession of new developments was by this time littered with the abandoned carcasses of dead ideas. It reminded the scientists forcibly of the pitfalls that await the unwary when speculation is given too free a rein and imagination is allowed to float farther and farther aloft from the firm grounds of demonstrable proof and scientific rigor. The reaction against this tendency took the form of a generally cooler reception to Danchekker's attempted abrupt wrapping up of the whole issue than might have been expected. So many blind alleys had been exhausted by now, that any new suggestion met with instinctive skepticism and demands for corroboration.

The discovery of early terrestrial animals on the Ganymean spaceship proved only one thing conclusively: that there were early terrestrial animals on the Ganymean spaceship. It didn't prove beyond doubt that other consignments had reached Minerva safely, or indeed, that this particular consignment was ever intended for Minerva. For one thing, Jupiter seemed a strange place to find a ship that had been bound for Minerva from Earth. All it proved, therefore, was that this consignment hadn't got to wherever it was supposed to go.

Danchekker's conclusions regarding the origins of the Ganymeans, however, were fully endorsed by a committee of experts on comparative anatomy in London, who confirmed the affinity between the Ganymean skeleton and the Minervan fish. The corollary to this deduction—that the Lunarians too had evolved on Minerva from displaced terrestrial stock—although neatly accounting for the absence of Lunarian traces on Earth and for the evident lack of advanced Lunarian space technology, required a lot more in the way of substantiating evidence.

In the meantime, Linguistics had been busy applying their newfound knowledge from the microdot library to the last unsolved riddle among Charlie's papers, the notebook containing the handwritten entries. The story that emerged provided vivid confirmation of the broad picture already deduced in cold and objective terms by Hunt and Steinfield; it was an account of the last days of Charlie's life. The revelations from the book lobbed yet another intellectual grenade in among the already disarrayed ranks of the investigators. But it was Hunt who finally pulled the pin.

* * *

Clasping a folder of loose papers beneath his arm, Hunt strolled along the main corridor of the thirteenth floor of the Navcomms Headquarters building, toward the linguistics section. Outside Don Maddson's office he stopped to examine with curiosity a sign bearing a string of two-inch-high Lunarian characters that had been pinned to the door. Shrugging and shaking his head, he entered the room. Inside, Maddson and one of his assistants were sitting in front of the perpetual pile of litter on the large side table away from the desk. Hunt pulled up a chair and joined them.

"You've been through the translations," Maddson observed, noting the contents of the folder as Hunt began arranging them on the table.