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Arcturian Institute of Spatial Technology and later entered his profession, the early fairy tales were forgotten. Only once since then had he really wondered. He had happened upon one of the ancient worlds of the Centaurian Sector in the course of business; one of those worlds whose history could be counted in millennia and whose language was so archaic that its dialect might almost be that lost and mythical language, English. They had a special word for a man with dark skin.
    Now why should there be a special word for a man with dark skin? There was no special word for a man with blue eyes, or large ears, or curly hair. There was no——
    The Clerk’s precise voice broke his reverie. “You have been at this office before, according to the record.”
    Dr. Junz said with some asperity, “I have indeed, sir.”
    “But not recently.”
    “No, not recently.”
    “You are still in search of a Spatio-analyst who disappeared”—the Clerk flipped sheets—“some eleven months and thirteen days ago.”
    “That’s right.”
    “In all that time,” said the Clerk in his dry, crumbly voice out of which all the juice seemed carefully pressed, “there has been no sign of the man and no evidence to the effect that he ever was anywhere in Sarkite territory.”
    “He was last reported,” said the scientist, “in space near Sark.”
    The Clerk looked up and his pale blue eyes focused for a moment on Dr. Junz, then dropped quickly. “This may be so, but it is not evidence of his presence
on
Sark.”
    Not evidence! Dr. Junz’s lips pressed tightly together. It was what the Interstellar Spatio-analytic Bureau had been telling him with increasing bluntness for months.
    No evidence, Dr. Junz. We feel that your time might be betteremployed, Dr. Junz. The Bureau will see to it that the search is maintained, Dr. Junz.
    What they really meant was, Stop wasting our dough, Junz!
    It had begun, as the Clerk had carefully stated, eleven months and thirteen days ago by Interstellar Standard Time (the Clerk would, of course, not be guilty of using local time on a matter of this nature). Two days before that he had landed on Sark on what was to be a routine inspection of the Bureau’s offices on that planet, but which turned out to be—well, which turned out to be what it was.
    He had been met by the local representative of the I.S.B., a wispy young man who was marked in Dr. Junz’s thoughts chiefly by the fact that he chewed, incessantly, some elastic product of Sark’s chemical industry.
     
    It was when the inspection was almost over and done with that the local agent had recalled something, parked his lastoplug in the space behind his molars and said, “Message from one of the field men, Dr. Junz. Probably not important. You know
them.
”
    It was the usual expression of dismissal: You know
them.
Dr. Junz looked up with a momentary flash of indignation. He was about to say that fifteen years ago he himself had been a “field man,” then he remembered that after three months he had been able to endure it no longer. But it was that bit of anger that made him read the message with an earnest attention.
    It went:
Please keep direct coded line open to I.S.B. Central HQ for detailed message involving matter of utmost importance. All Galaxy affected. Am landing by minimum trajectory.
    The agent was amused. His jaws had gone back to their rhythmic champing and he said, “Imagine, sir. ‘All Galaxy affected.’ That’s pretty good, even for a field man. I called him after I got this to see if I could make any sense out of him, but that flopped. He just kept saying that the life of every human being on Florina was in danger. You know, half a billion lives at stake. He soundedvery psychopathic. So, frankly, I don’t want to try to handle him when he lands. What do you suggest?”
    Dr. Junz had said, “Do you have a transcript of your talk?”
    “Yes, sir.” There was a few minutes searching. A sliver of film was finally found.
    Dr.