Another sun was setting. Another day had gone to join the fruitless ones preceding it. The expedition among the trees had told him nothing. Everything was the same as Tsu had explained several times before. His alerted senses found no discrepancy. He was disappointed, and he said as much in his evening report to Commander Spliid. "It adds up," Spliid said encouragingly. Rowley felt a glow. "You get it?" "No, frankly. But top rating must have the right slant. Where does percipiency leave off and old fashioned imagination begin? You're functioning like a percie, even when there's nothing to perceive." "I thought _you_ weren't satisfied...." "I'm not a percie, Cliff. Any dissatisfaction I may feel is aroused by the conflicting reports of the field men. Anyway, we can probably clear that up in the correlating department." Rowley's heart sank. "You _are_ satisfied!" The speaker hummed. Spliid said, flatly, "I've got to be. Everybody else is ... except you." Rowley grunted. "Six days! I'll try to uncover something." Spliid's voice sounded worried. "I hate this, Cliff. Your talents can be valuable to the Corps. We deal in cubic parsecs of space and aeons of time. It takes more than ordinary reasoning power to cope with it." "I believe you mean it," Rowley said. "I do. So what's Hume? One world in millions." Rowley's switched him off. He bit his lip. It was Galethsurv's purpose to make single, cohesive sense out of the patch-work, and tatterdemalion shreds of human culture that had been systematically turned up in the galaxy. Where did the culture of Hume fit into that overall pattern? Galethsurv believed that the distribution of mankind among the stars had not been accident. Where, then, had Man originated? It was important to know. Remembrance of yesterday points the way toward a more highly educated guess about tomorrow. Someday, Man would find out if--or _why_--he had been deliberately seeded among the stars. And then...? * * * * * "_Sintaha_ Rowley, are you not also Keepers of the Trees on your own world?" Tsu was so earnest with the question, Rowley was surprised. He made a wry grimace, half humorous. "Of course, we grow trees for fruit, for shade and beauty, to cut down and make lumber for houses...." She drew away from him, rigid, trembling. "_You cut down trees!_" He hadn't meant to make that slip. He knew her feeling for trees. Her look accused him. "I don't understand your attitude," he said lamely. "Nor do I understand yours." She brooded silently. "It is different, I suppose, on other worlds. The trees are different." They sat in the lush grass, on the hillside below his tent. The toy village lay at their feet, a cardboard set in miniature. "Your people puzzle us, Tsu. You are too different from us...." "We have tried to make it easy for you," she murmured. Easy? Too easy, he thought. It was all too plain, too easy to understand. That's why he couldn't understand a bit of it.