"Mph. So can I. Even now you sometimes run into people who go to great length to make you admit that there are pyramids both in Egypt and Mexico--and for that matter on Regulus Six--and infer from that that their makers had something in the way of common culture. I say these things are amphibians, without the Capital A, because they are at home both on land and in water. And a dictionary would back me up. I don't insist that they're related to those of Earth--any more than a Mayan pyramid has anything but geometry in common with an Egyptian one." "But I've heard--" "I'm sure you have, but it's a sore subject. I'll be open-minded if you like and admit that some Egyptian _may_ have been blown across the Atlantic and taught architecture to the Americans, but I don't regard it as proved. What was that remark of yours--'as far as we know'--in connection with the ancestry of the amphibids? That's being at least as open-minded as I was, I would say." * * * * * "In a way, yes. I don't think anyone has seriously suggested that these things originated on Earth. However, a puzzle we're here to investigate still exists. How there could be life forms corresponding to those which took a good half billion years to evolve elsewhere, on a planet which by geophysical evidence hasn't been solid for forty million? _Someone_ certainly has suggested that the world was stocked from outside. But certainly it hasn't been proved. I don't think anyone has tried very hard, either. And I certainly won't, on a planet with as much radioactivity as this one." "You think that would account for high-speed evolution?" Lampert shrugged his shoulders, and began to stroll toward the next cage. "Ask the paleontologists. My opinion doesn't carry much weight." Mitsuitei nodded, started to follow the geophysicist, and then turned back to stare once more at the carnivore lying a few feet away. It stared back unblinkingly. The visit to the zoo was one of several, which continued until Lampert, Mitsuitei and the two paleontologists were able to identify each of a dozen animals which were most concerned in the death rate of Viridis. Apparently McLaughlin was not the only guide who did this. The zoo was equipped to give a "final examination" in which any creature the guide desired could be seen on a television screen from viewpoints quite different from those obtained in front of the cages. McLaughlin proved hard to satisfy.