Farrell came out of his
cubicle and broke a packaged meal from the food locker. The visicom over
the control board hummed softly, its screen blank on open channel.

"Gibson found his lost city yet?" Farrell asked, and grinned when
Stryker snorted.

"He's scouring the daylight side now," Stryker said. "Arthur, I'm going
to ground Gib tomorrow, much as I dislike giving him a direct order.
He's got that phantom city on the brain, and he lacks the imagination to
understand how dangerous to our assignment an obsession of that sort can
be."

Farrell shrugged. "I'd agree with you offhand if it weren't for Gib's
bullheaded habit of being right. I hope he finds it soon, if it's here.
I'll probably be standing his watch until he's satisfied."

Stryker looked relieved. "Would you mind taking it tonight? I'm
completely bushed after today's logging."

Farrell waved a hand and took up his magnoscanner. It was dark outside
already, the close, soft night of a moonless tropical world whose moist
atmosphere absorbed even starlight. He dragged a chair to the open port
and packed his pipe, settling himself comfortably while Stryker mixed a
nightcap before turning in.

Later he remembered that Stryker dissolved a tablet in his glass, but at
the moment it meant nothing. In a matter of minutes the older man's
snoring drifted to him, a sound faintly irritating against the velvety
hush outside.

Farrell lit his pipe and turned to the inconsistencies he had uncovered.
The Arzians did not swim, and without boats....

It occurred to him then that there had been two of the pink fishers on
the islet each morning, and the coincidence made him sit up suddenly,
startled. Why two? Why not three or four, or only one?

He stepped out through the open lock and paced restlessly up and down on
the springy turf, feeling the ocean breeze soft on his face. Three days
of dull routine logwork had built up a need for physical action that
chafed his temper; he was intrigued and at the same time annoyed by the
enigmatic relation that linked the Arzian fishers to the dragons and
squids, and his desire to understand that relation was aggravated by the
knowledge that Arz could be a perfect world for Terran colonization.
That is, he thought wryly, if Terran colonists could stomach the weird
custom pursued by its natives of committing suicide in pairs.

He went over again the improbable drama of the past three mornings, and
found it not too unnatural until h