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mischievous twinkle that danced in the eyes below the craggy brows that the question had been more
than casual. He should have known. Caldwell never said or did anything without a reason.
"Know thyself," Caldwell quoted softly. "And others too, maybe, huh?" He shrugged as if making light of
the matter, but the twinkle still remained in his eyes.
Hunt's brows knitted for a split second, and then his eyes slowly widened as the cryptic message behind
this turn in the conversation became clear. It took perhaps two seconds for the de..
tails to click into place in his brain. In the early days of the Lunarian investigations, just after Hunt had
moved to Houston from England, his relationship with Danchekker had been caustic. Progress toward
unraveling the mystery was more often than not hampered because the two scientists dissipated their
energies fruitlessly in personal conificts. But later on, in the wilderness of Luna and out in the void
between Earth and Jupiter, all that had somehow been forgotten. It was then that the two scientists had
begun to work in harmony, and the difficulties had crumbled before the powerful assault of their
combined talents, which was what had been needed to solve the Lunanian problem. Hunt could see that
clearly now. Suddenly, he also realized that this state of affairs had not come about through mere
accident. He stared at Caldwell with new respect, and slowly nodded ungrudging approval.
"Gregg," he said, in a tone of mock reproach. "You've been pulling strings again. You set us up."
"I did?" Caldwell's voice was suitably innocent.
"Chris and me. It was out there we began to see each other as people and learned to pool our marbles.
That's what cracked the Lunarian riddle. You knew it would happen. . ." Hunt pointed an accusing finger
across the desk. "That's why you did it."
Caidwell compressed his heavy jowls momentarily into a tight-lipped grin of satisfaction. "So, you got
more than your money's worth," he threw back. "Not complaining, are you?"
"Smooth operator," Hunt complimented, raising his glass. "Okay, we've both had a good deal. That's
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how I think business ought to be. But now to the present and the future-what have you got lined up
next?"
Caidwell sat forward and rested his elbows on the desk. He exhaled a long stream of blue smoke.
"What about this bunch of alien guys you brought back from Europe; are you still tied up most of the time
with looking after them?"
"They've been introduced over at Westwood now," Hunt told him. "They're interested in the Lunarians
and particularly want to have a look at Charlie over there. Chris Danchekker is handling that side of
things, which leaves me fairly free for a while."
"Fine. What I'd like you to start giving some thought to is a preliminary overview of Ganymean science,"
Caidwell said. "What with this ZORAC machine of theirs and all the conferences
and discussions they're having all over the place, there's more information coming across than we can
handle. When all the excitement dies down there's going to be one hell of a lotta work to get through with
all that. When you were coordinating the Charlie business you operated a pretty good network of
channels to most of the leading scientific institutions and establishments around the world. I'd like you to
use those channels again to make a start at cataloging and evaluating everything that's new, especially
things that could be of particular use to UNSA-like their gravitics. We may find we want to revise a lot of
our own research programs in light of what these big guys have got to tell us. Now seems as good a time
as any to begin."
"The group stays intact for a while then?" Hunt guessed, referring to the team that he had headed during
the Lunarian investigations and which had continued working under the supervision of his deputy, mainly
to tidy up the unresolved details, during his time on Ganymede.
"Yep." Caldwell nodded. "The way they work seems set up for the job. Have you said hello to them
yet?"
Hunt shook his head. "Only got back this morning. I came straight on here."
"Do that then," Caidwell said. "There are probably a lot of old friends around here that you want to see.
Take the rest of this week to settle in again. Then make a start on what we just talked about on Monday.
Okay?"
"Okay. The first thing I'll do is go see the group and give them an idea of what our next job's going to be.
I think they'll like it. Who knows . . . they might even have half of it organized for me by Monday if they
start thinking about it." He cocked an inquiring eye at Caldwell. "Or is that what you figure you pay me to
do?"
"I pay you to think smart," Caldwell grunted. "That's called delegation. If you wanna delegate too, that's
what I call thinking smart. Do it."
Hunt spent the rest of that day with his own staff, familiarizing himself with some of the fine points of how
they had been getting on-he had kept in touch with them almost daily for the general things-and outlining
for them his recent directive from Caldwell. After that there was no getting away; they quizzed him for
hours
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about every scrap of information that he had managed to absorb on Ganymean scientific theory and
technology, kept him talking all through lunch, and succeeded in extracting a commitment from him to
arrange for a Ganymean scientist or two to come and give them an intensive teach-in. At least, he
reflected as he finally, left for home at nine o'clock that night, he was not going to have any problems with
motivation there.
Next morning he made a point of avoiding that part of Naycomms HO building that contained his own
offices and started his day by paying a call on another old friend of his-Don Maddson, head of the
linguistics section. It was Don's team, working in cooperation with several universities and research
institutes all over the world, that had played one of the most important roles in the Lunanian saga by
untangling the riddle of the Lunanian language, using documents found on Charlie's person and, later, a
library of microdot texts from the remains of a Lunarian base that had come to light near Tycho, Without
the translations, it would never have been possible even to prove conclusively that the Lunanans and the
Ganymeans had come from the same planet.
Hunt stopped outside the door of Maddson's office, knocked lightly and entered without waiting for a
reply. Maddson was sitting behind his desk studying a sheet from a stack of the innumerable pieces of
paper without which his office would never have seemed complete. He glanced up, stared incredulously
for a second, and then his face split into a broad ear-to-ear smile.
"Vic! What the. . ." He half rose from his chair and began pumping Hunt's proffered hand vigorously.
"It's great to see ya
great. I knew you were back on Earth but nobody told me you were Stateside yet. . ." He beckoned
Hunt toward an easy chair on the other side of the desk. "Sit down, sit down
When did you get in?"
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