and said you'd be along with some museum stuff... Les lives
here, now, working with the new Archeological Institute."

"Hi-hi--good to see you guys," Ramos said.

"Likewise. Hello, Les," Frank put in.

While Frank was gripping David Lester's limp, diffident hand, which
seemed almost to apologize for his having come so far from home, Gimp
teased a little. "So you latched onto Art Kuzak, too. Or was it the
other way around?"

Frank's smile was lopsided. "I didn't analyze motives. Art's a pretty
good guy. I suppose we just wanted to help Joe and him out. Or maybe it
was instinct. Anyhow, what's wrong with latching onto--or being latched
onto by--somebody whom you feel will get himself and you ahead, and make
you both a buck?"

"Check. Not a darn thing," Gimp laughed. "Now let's go to my hotel and
have a look at what you brought in. Did you really examine it, yet?"

"Some--on the way. Not very much," Ramos said. "There's a camera."

In the privacy of Gimp's quarters, the bundles were opened; the
contents, some of them dried and gruesome, all of them rather wonderful,
were exposed.

David Lester and Gimp Hines were both quietly avid. Lester knew the most
about these things, but Gimp's hands, on the strange camera, were more
skillful. The cautious scrutiny of dials and controls marked with
cryptic numerals and symbols, and the probing of detail parts and their
functions, took about an hour.

"What do you think, Les?" Gimp asked.

"I'm not an expert, yet," Lester answered. "But as far as I know, this
is the first undamaged camera that has yet been found. That makes it
unique. Of course by now, hoppers are bringing in quite a lot of
artifacts from surface-asteroids. But there's not much in the way of new
principle for our camera manufacturers to buy. Lens systems, shutters,
shock mountings, self-developing, integral viewing, projecting and sonic
features, all turn out to be similar to ours. It's usually that way with
other devices, too. It's as if all their history, and ours, were
parallel."

"Well, dammit--let's see what the thing can show!" Ramos gruffed.

In the darkened room, the device threw a rectangle of light on the wall.
Then there was shape, motion, and color, kept crystallized from sixty
million years before. A cloud, pinked by sunrise, floating high in a
thin, expanded atmosphere. Did clouds everywhere in the universe always
look much the same? Wolfish, glinting darts, vanishing away. Then a
mountain