om his ship. A worried man he
was. So it seems now that we've had one of the Old Galactics around for
a while. When did you first find out about it?"

"On the morning after our interview. Right after I got up."

"How?"

Trigger laughed. "I watch my weight. When I noticed I'd turned three and
a half pounds heavier overnight than I'd averaged the past four years, I
knew all right!"

Pilch smiled faintly. "You weren't alarmed at all?"

"No. I guess I'd been prepared just enough by that time. But then, you
know, I forgot all about it again until Lyad and Flam opened that
purse--and he wasn't inside. Then I remembered, and after that I didn't
forget again."

"No. Of course." Pilch's slim fingers tapped the surface of the table
between them. She said then, paying Repulsive the highest compliment
Pilch could give, "It--he--was a good therapist!" After a moment, she
added. "I had a talk with Commissioner Tate an hour or so ago. He's
preparing to leave Maccadon again, I understand."

"That's right. He's been organizing that big exploration trip of
Mantelish's the past couple of months. He'll be in charge of it when
they take off."

"You're not going along?" Pilch asked.

Trigger shook her head. "Not this time. Ape and I--Captain Quillan and
I, that is--"

"I heard," Pilch said. She smiled. "You picked a good one on the second
try!"

"Quillan's all right," Trigger agreed. "If you watch him a little."

"Anyway," said Pilch, "Commissioner Tate seems to be just the least bit
worried about you still."

Trigger put a finger to her temple and made a small circling motion. "A
bit ta-ta?"

"Not exactly that, perhaps. But it seems," said Pilch, "that you've told
him a good deal about the history of the Old Galactics, including what
ended them as a race thirty-two thousand years ago."

Trigger's face clouded a little. "Yes," she said. She sat silent for a
moment. "Well, I got that from Repulsive somewhere along the line," she
said then. "It didn't really come clear until some time after we'd got
back. But it was there in those pictures in the interview."

"The giants stamping on the farm?"

Trigger nodded. "And the fast clock and the slow one. He was trying to
tell it then. The Jesters--that's the giants--they're fast and tough
like us. Apparently," Trigger said thoughtfully, "they're a good deal
like us in a lot of ways. But worse. Much worse! And the Old Galactics
were just slow. They thought slow; they moved slow-