"Huh? What? Spill it."
"The Captain wants to prove a man can't die of curiosity. He figures .that you are a perfect test case."
"Oh, go soak your head."
Captain Yancey called them all together again the following day. "Gentlemen, I appreciate your patience. I have not wanted to discuss what was found in the Pathfinder until I had time to decide what should be done about it. It comes to this: the planetologist with the Pathfinder, Professor Thorwald1, came to the unmistakable conclusion that the disrupted planet was inhabited."
The room started to buzz. "Quiet, please! There are samples of fossil- bearing rock in the Pathfinder, but there are other exhibits as well, which Professor Thorwald concluded -Dr. Pickering and Commander Miller and I concur-concluded to be artefacts, items worked by intelligent hands.
"That fact alone would be enough ,to send a dozen ships scurrying into the asteroid belt," he went on. "It is probably the most important discovery in System-study since they opened the diggings in Luna. But Professor Thorwald formed another conclusion even more startling. With the aid of the ship's bomb officer, using the rate-of-radioactive-decay method, he formed a tentative hypothesis that the planet-he calls it Planet Lucifer-was disrupted by artificial nuclear explosion. In other words, they did' it themselves."
The silence was broken only by the soft sighing of the room's ventilators. Then Thurlow exploded, "But Captain, that's impossible!"
Captain Yancey looked at him. "Do you know all the answers, young man? I'm sure I don't."
"I'm sorry, sir."
"In this case I wouldn't even venture to have an opinion. I'm not competent. However, gentlemen, if it be true, as Professor Thorwald certainly thought it was, then I hardly need point out to you that we have more reason than ever to be proud of our Patrol-and our responsibility is even heavier than we had thought.