I grabbed the power controls, John fed the crystals onto the minima plate, I pressed the button and fielded the staggering human being off the maxima plate before the enlarged crystal came following through. The crystals I kicked into the corner of the cellar. We did not talk, but concentrated on this rush conversion. When we had released the last man, there were fifty-three people in the cellar, including John, myself and the bubble dancer, who for some reason clung to me and kissed me. Most of the people were elderly men. Their clothes were tattered and stained by nutrient solution. Some were threadbare. Many had been wearing laboratory coats of ceramic fabric, which had chipped and fallen away in patches. They must have been in the crystals for a long time. I watched John bend anxiously over a group of elderly men. "Doctor Firnivale. Professor Marrpole. Doctor Hutk. And Williams." The men we had just released nodded in turn. "You, Dr. Firnivale," John said. "Did you give the advanced geo-physics lectures?" "Through that crook's hearing aid," said the tattered man on the cellar floor. "Yes, I did. I could hear the questions and I told him the answers. So did all these others here." "Professor Marrpole, I recognized you from a stereo-record you made on magnetic differentiation on small planets. Is that how David Adam Smith became the world authority when you disappeared?" "Yes," the man with the shaggy beard confirmed. "He caught me by asking me to stand on a plate for a live recording." * * * * * John turned to me. "We have here, Morry, a careful collection of the leading specialists in the world. These people are the reason for David Adam Smith being able to outthink any fifty men. These are the fifty men he built his reputation with!" "I don't understand why you all helped him," I said. "Because he used to oscillate the crystals we were in, young man." "But now it's our turn!" "By heaven, wait until I meet that treacherous snake...." "I'm going to sue him for every credit he has!" "Who would care to join me in pulling him into small pieces surgically?" The babble in the cellar rose in volume and intensity. Under it all, the bubble-dancer was whispering in my ear how grateful she was to great big me, and how that foul old goat had kept her for amusement just because she walked into his office to complain when he fired those nice boys.... "He had to, I suppose," I said. "If you saw all these people in crystals." "Gentlemen, gentlemen," John roared. "Please!" There was silence. "Thank you. Which of you in fact thought of the stellar-reporters for accumulating data on other parts of the Galaxy?" "I did," said a tall thin man by the door. "Higgins is my name." Even I had heard of the astrophysicist inventor. "Had it occurred to you that with these crystals and your stellar-reporters man could expand through the Galaxy?" "No. But now that you raise the point, of course we could!"