I flipped open one of the books, a heavy folio-sized volume, to a double-page spread in color showing a group of bearded Arabs in dingy white djellabas staring toward the camera, a flock of thin goats in the background. It looked like the kind of picture the National Geographic runs, except that the quality of the color and detail was equal to the best color transparencies. "I can't read the print," I said, "but I'm a whiz at looking at pictures. Most of the books show scenes like I hope I never see in the flesh, but I found a few that were made on Earth--God knows how long ago." "Travel books, perhaps," Foster said. "Travel books that you could sell to any university on Earth for their next year's budget. Take a look at this one." Foster looked across at the panoramic shot of a procession of shaven-headed men in white sarongs, carrying a miniature golden boat on their shoulders, descending a long flight of white stone steps leading from a colonnade of heroic human figures with folded arms and painted faces. In the background, brick-red cliffs loomed up, baked in desert heat. "That's the temple of Hat-Shepsut in its prime," I said. "Which makes this print close to four thousand years old. Here's another I recognize." I turned to a smaller, aerial view, showing a gigantic pyramid, its polished stone facing chipped in places and with a few panels missing from the lower levels, revealing the cruder structure of massive blocks beneath. "That's one of the major pyramids, maybe Khufu's," I said. "It was already a couple thousand years old, and falling into disrepair. And look at this--" I opened another volume, showed Foster a vivid photograph of a great shaggy elephant with a pinkish trunk upraised between wide-curving yellow tusks. "A mastodon," I said. "And there's a woolly rhino, and an ugly-looking critter that must be a sabre-tooth. This book is old...." "A lifetime of rummaging wouldn't exhaust the treasures aboard this ship," said Foster. "How about bones? Did you find any more?" Foster nodded. "There was a disaster of some sort. Perhaps disease. None of the bones was broken." * * * * * "I can't figure the one in the lifeboat," I said. "Why was he wearing a necklace of bear's teeth?" I sat down across from Foster. "We've got plenty of mysteries to solve, all right, but there are some other items we'd better talk about. For instance: where's the kitchen? I'm getting hungry." Foster handed me a black rod from among several that lay on the table. "I think this may be important," he said. "What is it? a chop stick?" "Touch it to your head, above the ear." "What does it do--give you a massage?" I pressed it to my temple....