"But recently we have uncovered a book--a very old book, which we believe was owned by Dachboden himself. Inside it, there was the beginning of a letter addressed to a friend, in which Dachboden mentioned that one of his dynak-wood statues had been picked to be put in the time capsule, and had been sealed in just the day before the letter was written. "Naturally, as soon as we heard of that, we of the Museum exhumed the time capsule to check again the exact date upon which it is due to reopen. It is now under careful guard within the Museum itself." As the car rolled into the outskirts of Grosstat, Hale looked around and remarked: "So this is the birthplace of the famous Dachboden." The expression on the face of the Director changed slightly; he looked a little flustered. "Well, not exactly," he said. Hale turned on him, surprise showing in his eyes. "Not exactly? Oh, come now, my dear Director; either it is or it isn't--eh?" "Ah--well, yes. It isn't. Uh--what I mean to say is that, although Dachboden spent most of his life in Grosstat, he was actually born in Grunfelt." "Oh?" "Yes." He waved a hand in a little nervous circle. "You must understand that Apfahl is, as I said, a rather--ah--well, _backward_ is too strong a word, but--" He stopped, swallowed, began again. "You see, Dr. Dale, Apfahl does not yet have a united planetary government. We have--ah--_two_ sectors, each independently governed. Of course, we who are more enlightened deplore such a state of affairs, but--" He stopped again and smiled weakly. "However that may be, Dr. Dale, it so happens that R. Philipp Dachboden was born, not in this nation of Nordapfahl, but in the country of Sudapfahl." "But he came here to work, eh?" Mier bobbed his head in an emphatic _yes_. "Of course! No man of his brilliance could have been expected to stay in the art-smothering atmosphere of Sudapfahl as it was two hundred years ago. Or even, for that matter, as it is today." "Well, well," boomed Leland Hale with pompous heartiness, "you are certainly fortunate. Very fortunate indeed, Dr. Mier. To think that there, in your museum, you have an art treasure worth many hundreds of thousands of stellors--possibly a million. Marvelous!" Dr. Rudolf Mier positively glowed. "Well--yes--I suppose we are pretty lucky at that." A slight frown came over his face. "It has always been--ah--somewhat of a thorn in the side of Apfahl--especially Nordapfahl--that Dachboden was a little ungrateful in not allowing us to keep at least one example of his art." Leland Hale placidly refrained from pointing out that Dachboden would have starved to death trying to sell his material on Apfahl two centuries before. In the first place, no one there appreciated him, and in the second place, there wasn't much money to be spent on art. Even the little amount Dachboden got for his work off-planet was a tremendous sum as far as Apfahl's economy was concerned. * * * * *