"He was," said Dr. Dale sourly. "His paintings are worth tens of thousands. But his carvings are worth hundreds of thousands. There are only eighteen examples of his work known to be in existence. Now there is reason to believe there may be a nineteenth."
"Oh yeah," said the pilot. "He left one in the time capsule, eh?"
"Presumably. We'll know in a few weeks."
"I guess there'll be a lot of art experts coming in pretty soon, then, huh?" the pilot asked.
"I expect my colleagues to arrive on the Quinsen, out of Denebola. It's the next scheduled liner to make a stop here at Apfahl. I, however, wanted to get the jump on them. Get in on the ground floor, so to speak," the doctor told him.
"I getcha," said the pilot. It didn't occur to him to wonder what good it would do to get in early when the time capsule wouldn't open until the scheduled time, anyway, and by then all the art experts for a thousand parsecs around would be clustered on the spot.
When the flitter landed, the self-important Dr. Allen H. Dale supervised the unloading of his luggage at the third-rate little spaceport near the city of Grosstat, a few miles from the shores of the Kaltvosser Sea. It hadn't been grounded ten minutes before a big, black, newly-made automobile of quaintly antique design rolled up to the edge of the landing pit. Two uniformed men got out and stood at attention at the rear door, which opened to disgorge a third man, a civilian. The civilian was almost as broad as Dr. Dale, but not nearly so tall; he looked well-fed, almost oily, and he had a smug expression on his round face.
Flanked by the two uniformed men, the portly civilian moved ponderously toward the heap of traveling bags and the gray-bearded man who was standing beside them.
"Dr. Allen Dale?" he asked respectfully.