Hunt had practically insisted to Caldwell that if they succeeded in arranging a landing for a ship from Thurien, Danchekker would have to be included in the reception party; he probably knew more about Ganymean biology and psychology than anybody else in the worid’s scientific community. Caldwell had broached the subject confidentially with the Director of the Westwood Institute, who had agreed and advised Danchekker accordingly. Danchekker had not needed very much persuading. He was far from happy at the manner in which the eminent personages responsible for managing Earth’s affairs had been handling things, however.

"The whole situation is preposterous," Danchekker declared irritably while he was loading the instruments he had been using into a sterilizer on one side of the room. "Politics, cloak-and-dagger theatrics-this is an unprecedented opportunity for the advancement of knowledge and probably for a quantum leap in the progress of the whole human race, yet here we are having to plot and scheme as if we were dealing in illicit narcotics or something. I mean, good God, we can’t even talk about it over the phone! The situation’s intolerable."

Lyn straightened up from the dissecting table, where she had been curiously studying the exposed innards of Daphoenodon. "I guess the UN feels it has an obligation to humanity to play safe," she said. "It’s a contact with a whole new civilization, and they figure that up front it ought to be handled by the professionals."

Danchekker closed the sterilizer lid with a bang and walked over to a sink to rinse his hands. "When the Shapieron arrived at Ganymede, the only representatives of Homo sapiens there to meet it were, as I recall, the scientific and engineering personnel of the UNSA Jupiter missions," he pointed out coolly. "They conducted themselves in exemplary fashion and had established a perfectly civilized relationship with the Ganymeans long before the ship came to Earth. That was without any ‘professionals’ being involved at all, apart from sending inane advice from Earth on how the situation should be managed, and which those on the spot simply laughed at and ignored."

Hunt looked across from a chair by a desk that stood in one corner of the lab, almost surrounded by computer terminal equipment and display screens. "Actually there is something to be said for the UN line," he said. "I don’t think you’ve thought yet just how big a risk we might be taking."

Danchekker sniffed as he came back around the table. "What are you talking about?"

"If the State Department wasn’t convinced that if we don’t go it alone and fix a landing the Soviets will, we’d be a lot more cautious too," Hunt told him.

"I don’t follow you," Danchekker said. "What is there to be cautious about? The Ganymean mind is incapable of conceiving anything that could constitute a threat to our, or anybody else’s, well-being, as you well know. They simply have not been shaped by the factors that have conditioned Homo sapiens to be what he is." He waved a hand in front of his face before Hunt could reply. "And as for your fears that the Thuriens may have changed in some fundamental way, you may forget that. The fundamental traits that determine human behavior were established, not tens but hundreds of millions of years ago, and I have studied Minervan evolution sufficiently to be satisfied that the same may safely be said of Ganymeans also. On such timescales, twenty-five million years is scarcely significant, and quite incapable of giving rise to changes of the magnitude that your suggestion implies."

"I know that," Hunt said when he could get a word in. "But you’re going off at a wrong tangent. That’s not the problem. The problem is that we might not be talking to Ganymeans at all."

Danchekker seemed taken aback for a moment, then frowned as if Hunt should have known better. "That’s absurd," he declared. "Who else could we be talking to? The original transmission from Farside was encoded in Ganymean communications format and understood, was it not? What reason is there to suppose its recipients were anything else?"

"They’re talking in English now, but it’s not coming from London," Hunt replied.

"But they are talking from Gistar," Danchekker retorted. "And isn’t that where, from independently derived evidence, we deduced that the Ganymeans went?"

"We don’t know that those signals are coming from Gistar," Hunt pointed out. "They say they are, but they’ve been saying all kinds of other strange things as well. Our beams are being aimed in the direction of Gistar, but we’ve no idea what’s out there past the edge of the solar system picking them up. It could be some kind of Ganymean relay that transforms signals that our physics knows nothing about into electromagnetic waves, but then again it might not."

"Surely it’s obvious," Danchekker said, sounding a trifle disdainful. "The Ganymeans left some kind of monitoring device behind when they migrated to Gistar, probably to detect and alert them to any signs of intelligent activity."

Hunt shook his head. "If that were the case, it would have been triggered by early radio over a hundred years ago. We’d have known about it long before now."

Danchekker thought about it for a moment, then showed his teeth. "Which proves my point. It responded only to Ganymean codes. We’ve never sent anything out encoded in Ganymean before, have we? Therefore it must be of Ganymean origin."

"And now it’s talking English. Does that mean it was made by Boeing?"

"Obviously the language was acquired via their surveillance operation."

"And maybe they learned Ganymean the same way."

"You’re being absurd."

Hunt threw out his arms in appeal. "For Christ’s sake, Chris, all I’m saying is let’s be open-minded for now and accept that we might be letting ourselves in for something we didn’t expect. You’re saying they have to be Ganymeans, and you’re probably right; I’m saying there’s a chance they might not be. That’s all I’m saying."

"You said yourself that Ganymeans don’t play cloak-and-dagger games and twist facts around, Professor," Lyn injected in a tone that she hoped would calm things a little. "But whoever it is seems to have some funny ideas about how to open up interplanetary relations. . . . And they’ve got some pretty weird ideas on how Earth is coming along these days, so somebody hasn’t been talking straight to somebody somewhere. That hardly sounds like Ganymeans, does it?"

Danchekker snorted but seemed hard-pressed for a reply. The terminal on a side table by the desk saved him by emitting a calltone. "Excuse me," he muttered, leaning past Hunt to accept. "Yes?" Danchekker inquired.

It was Ginny, calling from Navcomms HQ. "Hello, Professor Danchekker. I believe Dr. Hunt is with you. I have an urgent message for him. Gregg Caldwell said to find him and let him know right away."

Danchekker moved back a pace, and Hunt rolled his chair forward in front of the screen. "Hi, Ginny," he acknowledged. "What’s new?"

"A message has come in for you from Jupiter Five. " She looked down to read something below the edge of the screen. "It’s from the Mission Director-Joseph B. Shannon. It reads, ‘The lab tests worked out just as you hoped. Complete file of results being assembled for transmission now. Good luck’." Ginny looked up again. "Is that what you wanted to know?"

Hunt’s face was radiating jubilation. "It sure is, Ginny!" he said. "Thanks. . . . a lot." Ginny nodded and tossed him a quick smile; the screen blanked out.

Hunt swiveled his chair around to find two awed faces confronting him. "I guess we can stop arguing about it," he told them. "It looks as if we’ll know for sure before very much longer."