"Huh?" I gaped at him. "Solution to what? The unemployment problem?"
"No, Sparks! All our troubles! Quadruplets? No! Triplets? No! Twins? No, not even that! Just one baby!"
"Y-you mean," I asked him, "that's a repeat message? But, Lanse, you know as well as I do Joe would have announced it as a repeat—"
"Certainly. But what we're hearing is the same message over and over again!"
"Huh!" Hanson forced the query, new hope in every wrinkle of his brow.
"Yes. Remember how Marlowe's orders got grooved before, Sparks? Well, this is some more of the same thing! I know why, too. And I also know why we've been having so much trouble with the Themisites!"
"Y-you do? Why?"
"The moon! The invisible moon—that's the answer! Tell me, Sparks—what sort of things are invisible?"
"Why?" I stammered, "dark things seen against a dark background ... light things seen against a light background ... objects marked with protective coloration...."
"And transparent things!" chortled Biggs. "Transparent things with just sufficient mass to cause refraction of light! That's what Themis' moon is made of! Pure, unadulterated galena in its natural form is a colorless, transparent substance, sufficiently opaque to occult Themis, but also with enough mass to refract normal light rays! And galena is—"