, and sat drinking together till they all fell asleep. Well, we
know what became of them, now, anyhow."

Sid and Gloria made the most of it. The Terran public wanted to hear
about Martians, and if live Martians couldn't be found, a room full of
dead ones was the next best thing. Maybe an even better thing; it had
been only sixty-odd years since the Orson Welles invasion-scare. Tony
Lattimer, the discoverer, was beginning to cash in on his attentions to
Gloria and his ingratiation with Sid; he was always either making
voice-and-image talks for telecast or listening to the news from the
home planet. Without question, he had become, overnight, the most widely
known archaeologist in history.

"Not that I'm interested in all this, for myself," he disclaimed, after
listening to the telecast from Terra two days after his discovery. "But
this is going to be a big thing for Martian archaeology. Bring it to the
public attention; dramatize it. Selim, can you remember when Lord
Carnarvon and Howard Carter found the tomb of Tutankhamen?"

"In 1923? I was two years old, then," von Ohlmhorst chuckled. "I really
don't know how much that publicity ever did for Egyptology. Oh, the
museums did devote more space to Egyptian exhibits, and after a museum
department head gets a few extra showcases, you know how hard it is to
make him give them up. And, for a while, it was easier to get financial
support for new excavations. But I don't know how much good all this
public excitement really does, in the long run."

"Well, I think one of us should go back on the _Cyrano_, when the
_Schiaparelli_ orbits in," Lattimer said. "I'd hoped it would be you;
your voice would carry the most weight. But I think it's important that
one of us go back, to present the story of our work, and what we have
accomplished and what we hope to accomplish, to the public and to the
universities and the learned societies, and to the Federation
Government. There will be a great deal of work that will have to be
done. We must not allow the other scientific fields and the so-called
practical interests to monopolize public and academic support. So, I
believe I shall go back at least for a while, and see what I can do--"

Lectures. The organization of a Society of Martian Archaeology, with
Anthony Lattimer, Ph.D., the logical candidate for the chair. Degrees,
honors; the deference of the learned, and the adulation of the lay
public. Positions, with impressive titles and sa