Mr. Carver started to rise, but Jak was before him, and it was the latter whose voice cut through the din. "Oh, no, and I can prove which is our picture, if you will examine all the rest. I did all the developing and printing, and you'll find a small 'C' down in the lower right-hand corner of all our pictures. I marked all our negatives that way, as you can determine if you'll send someone to our ship to get the negatives from the darkroom."
The Board members huddled over the sheaves of pictures for a moment, then turned severely toward Bogin. "The young man is correct. All the Carver pictures are so marked, and so is this one of the completed townsite."
Jon Carver broke in. "Ask them to describe the animal life they found on Planet Three," he suggested.
"Well?" the Chairman looked levelly at Bogin.
"Why ... why...." The latter was quite taken aback by this sudden challenge. "Why, there are several species ... and ... and they were more or less like ours here, although not exactly like them, of course."
"Ha, that proves he was never on the ground there," Jon cried out in triumph. "We found, and so will anyone else you care to send there, that while Planet Three has a lot of vegetation and is perfectly habitable—though cold—there is absolutely no protoplasmic life to be found there. At least," he added honestly, "on any of the surface we covered, and our ship's log will show, as you can see there, that we flew at less than five miles up for eight complete but spiral revolutions about the planet, and were on the ground in several places, which we explored and photographed thoroughly."
"The young man is right," Mr. Silverman spoke up. "I noticed that fact mentioned in their records, and intended asking more about it, because this is the first planet of which I've heard, that is otherwise completely habitable by mankind, where such a condition has obtained—where there is voluminous floral life but no protoplasmic life of any kind. Being something of a botanist, that fact struck me at once."
Bogin rose, sneering, but also feeling safe in this part of his claim. "Bah! They just didn't happen to sit down in the same places we did ... if they were there at all. We saw lots of animal life there."
"And you took pictures of such life?" Mr. Carver asked pointedly.
"Why, no, it isn't required."