mp body and a relieved smile on his worried face when Mayhem entered
his office. The two men shook hands.

"So you're Mayhem?" Kovandaswamy said in English. "They told me to
expect you, sir. Pardon my staring, but I've never been face to face
with a legend before. I'm impressed."

* * * * *

Mayhem laughed. "You'll get over it."

"Well, at least as a Sirian gentleman, you're not very prepossessing.
That helps."

"It wasn't my idea. It never is."

"I know. I know that, sir." Kovandaswamy got up nervously from his desk
and paced across the room. "Do you know anything about Ophiuchus IX,
Mayhem?"

"Not much. It's one of the Forgotten Worlds, isn't it?"

"Precisely, sir. Ophiuchus IX is one of scores of interstellar worlds
colonized in the first great outflux from Earth."

"You mean during the population pressure of the 24th century?"

"Exactly. Then Ophiuchus IX, like the other Forgotten Worlds, was all
but forgotten. As you know, Mayhem, the first flux of colonization
receded like a wave, inertia set in, and the so-called Forgotten Worlds
became isolated from the rest of the galaxy for generations. Only in the
past fifty years are we finding them again, one by one. Ophiuchus IX is
typical, isolated from the galaxy at large by a dust cloud that--"

"I know. I came through it."

"It was colonized originally with Indians from southern and eastern
India, on Earth. That's why the Galactic League appointed me Observer.
I'm an Indian. These people--well, they're what my people might have
developed into if they'd lived for hundreds of years in perfect
isolation."

"What's the trouble?"

Kovandaswamy answered with a question of his own. "You are aware of the
Galactic League's chief aim?"

"Sure. To see that no outworld, however small or distant, is left in
isolation. Is that what you mean?"

"Yes," agreed Kovandaswamy. "Their reason is obvious. For almost a
thousand years now the human race has outpaced its social and moral
development with development in the physical sciences. For almost a
thousand years mankind has had the power to destroy itself. In isolation
this is possible. With mutual interchange of ideas, it is extremely
unlikely. Thus, in the interests of human survival, the Galactic League
tries to thwart isolated development. So far, the Forgotten Worlds have
cooperated. But Ophiuchus IX is an exception."

"And the League wants me to find out why?"

"Precisely."