Kit repeated his story, concluding:
"Beyond four places was pretty dim, but Q P arms and legs—Dhilian, eh?—would fit, and so would an R-type hide. Both Kat's and mine, then, could very well have been summer forms, one of their years apart. The thing I felt was on its own planet, and it died there, and credits to millos the thought I got wasn't primed. And the location—"
"Brake down, Kit," Camilla instructed. "Let's settle this thing of timing first. I've got a theory, but I want some ideas from the rest of you."
"Maybe something like this?" Clarrissa asked, after a few minutes of silence. "In many forms which metamorphose completely the change depends upon temperature. No change takes place as long as the temperature remains the same. Your TUUV could have been flitting around in a spaceship at constant temperature. Could this apply here, Cam, do you think?"
"Could it?" Kinnison exclaimed. "That's it, Chris, sure!"
"That was my theory," Camilla said, still dubiously, "but there is no proof that it applies. Nadreck, do you know whether or not it applies to your neighbors?"
"Unfortunately, I do not; but I can find out—by experiment if necessary."
"It might be a good idea," Kinnison suggested. "Go on, Cam."
"Assuming its truth, there is still left the problem of location, which Kit has just made infinitely worse than it was before. Con's and mine were so indefinite that they might possibly have been reconciled with Kat's precisely-known co-ordinates; but yours, Kit, is almost as definite as Kat's, and cannot possibly be made to agree with it. After all, you know, there are many planets peopled by races humanoid to ten places. And if there are four different races, none of them can be the one we want."