"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--they did almost everything slow. At full gallop, old Repulsive couldn't have kept up with a healthy snail. Besides, they just liked to grow things and tinker with things and so on. They didn't go in for fighting, and they never got to be at all good at it. So they just got wiped out, practically." "The Jesters were good at fighting, eh?" Trigger nodded. "Very good. Like us, again." "Where did they come from?" "Repulsive thought they were outsiders. He wasn't sure. He and that other O.G. were on the sidelines, running their protein collecting station, when the Jesters arrived; and it was all over and they were gone before he had learned much about it." "From outside the galaxy!" Pilch said thoughtfully. She cleared her throat. "What's this business about they might be back again?" "Well," Trigger said, "he thought they might be. Just might. Actually he believed the Jesters got wiped out too." "Eh?" Pilch said. "How's that?" "Quite a lot of the Old Galactics went along with them like Repulsive went along with me. And one of the things they did know," Trigger said, "was how to spread diseases like nobody's business. About like we use weed-killers. Wholesale. They could clean out the average planet of any particular thing they didn't want there in about a week. So it's not really too likely the Jesters will be back." "Oh!" said Pilch.