"A great many. Unfortunately, there seems to be at least some probability that the people involved won't turn out to be among them. However, those lists will provide an immediate starting point. They're being transferred to the IPA today." "Thanks," Fry said sourly. "I wouldn't do it if I didn't have to, Gus. Our Research investigators can't begin to cope with a number like that. They will cooperate with you closely, of course." "Nobody else will," said Fry. "I've come to the conclusion that our current populations are the least cooperative people in the history of the race." Camhorn nodded. "Naturally." "Naturally? Why should they be? Most of them are a little short of living space--unless they're willing to put up with frontier conditions--but otherwise humanity's never had it so good. They're not repressed; they're babied along--nine-tenths of the time anyway. They do just about as they damn well please. Thirty percent of them won't turn out a stroke of honest work from the beginning of their lives to the end." "True enough. And you've described an almost perfect setting for profound discontent. Which is being carefully maintained, by the way. We don't want humanity to go to sleep entirely just yet. Gus, how much do you know personally about Ym-400?" "Nothing," said Fry. "Now and then some rumor about it comes to the IPA's attention. Rumors of that kind go into our files as a matter of course. I see the files." "Well, then," said Camhorn, "what rumors have you seen?" "I can give you those," Fry said, "in a few sentences. YM--or Ym-400--is an element rather recently discovered by the Overgovernment's scientists; within the past few decades. It has the property of 'transmuting space-time stresses'--that's the rumor, verbatim. In that respect, it has some unspecified association with Riemann space phenomena. It has been located in a star system which lies beyond the areas officially listed as explored, and which at present is heavily guarded by Overgovernment ships. In this system is an asteroid belt, constituting the remnants of a planet broken up in an earlier period by YM action. And there," Fry added, grinning wolfishly, "I can even bring in a factual detail. I know that there is such a guarded system, and that it contains nothing but its star and the asteroid belt referred to. I could give you its location, but I'm sure you're familiar with it." Camhorn nodded. "I am. Any other rumors?" "I think that sums them up." * * * * * "Well," Camhorn said judiciously, "if the IPA is to be of much use to us in this investigation, it should be better informed than that. The rumors are interesting, though satisfactorily inaccurate. Ym-400, to begin with, is not a single element. It's a compound of several elements of the same series. The symbol attached to it is quite meaningless...." "For security reasons?"