"We've canvassed the medical profession from Brookline to Everett, including the boys on Scollay Square and a bouquet of fellows who aren't too squeamish about their income. Not a sign. Furthermore, that feather specimen was telephotoed to the more-complete libraries at New York, Chicago, Washington, and Berkeley. The Audubon Society has been consulted, as well as have most of the big ornithologists in the world. The sum total is this: "That feather is strictly unlike anything known. The skin is human--or as one dermatologist put it, is as human as possible considering that it is growing feathers instead of hair. The blood is the same story." Doc nodded. "Now what?" he repeated, though the sense of his words was different. "We wait. Boy, there's a big scareline in all the papers. The _Press_ is hinting that the guy is from outer space, having been told that there were intelligent humans here by that series of atom bomb explosions." "If we were really intelligent, we could get along with one another without atom bombs," grunted the Doc. "Well, the _Sphere_ claims that the character is a mutant resulting from atom bomb radiation by-products, or something. He quotes the trouble that the photographic manufacturers are having with radioactive specks in their plants. The _Tribune_ goes even further. He thinks the guy is an advance spy for an invasion from outer space, because his gang of feather-bearing humans are afraid to leave any world run loose with atom bombs. "The ultraconservative _Events_ even goes so far as to question the possibility of a feather-bearing man growing to full manhood without having some record of it. Based on that premise, they build an outer space yarn about it, too." Doc grunted. "Used to be invasions from Mars," he said. "They're smarter now," explained McDowell. "Seems as how the bright boys claim that life of humanoid varieties couldn't evolve on any planet of this system but the Earth. Therefore if it is alien, it must come from one of the stars. If it came from Mars it would be green worms, or seven-legged octopuses. Venus, they claim, would probably sprout dinosaurs or a gang of talking walleyed pike. Spinach, I calls it." Doc smiled. "Notice that none of 'em is claiming that they have the truth? It's all conjecture so far." "Trouble is that I'm the fall guy," complained McDowell. "It landed in my lap and now I'm it--expected to unravel it myself or be the laughingstock of the country, Canada, and the affiliations of the Associated Press." * * * * *