As the cruiser finally pointed toward home, Narant was a new man. Of course their information would set the scientific world spinning on its collective ear. But more important, it would have vast personal significance. According to the crystal, the mating pattern of these surprisingly progressive beings was entirely one of random selection! Already that data would be digesting inside the master calculators. The knowledge would become a part of all future decisions. Probability rates would change strikingly ... especially those that governed the issuance of "random-mating" licenses. For Narant, the voyage had been a tremendous success. * * * * * However, in the space experimental laboratories near the Nevada desert on the third planet of the sun Restus, no such optimism existed. Twenty-four hours had passed since the S-X-2 had vanished. They had had a precise fix on it as it blistered through the void on an elliptic course that would return it automatically to Earth. Everything had seemed to be going perfectly. All the bugs of the first Spacerocket Experimental had evidentally been straightened out in making the "2". And then, some 250-thousand miles beyond Saturn, it had disappeared. Just like that. Dr. Gordon Basset glanced distastefully at the telephone on his desk. Then he began thumbing through the metropolitan directory for a number. The hands that held the directory were strong, supple. They would have been a revelation to Technicist Ninth Class Narant, if he had seen them. But then Technicist Ninth Class Narant himself would have been something of a revelation to Dr. Gordon Basset, what with his twenty claw-like extensors. Basset found the number, dialed, and waited for the connection. "Hello, Dr. Farrell? Basset here. I've got bad news on the S-X-2.... No details yet, but the ship has broken contact.... Yes, I must presume it's lost.... I'll file a complete report as soon as possible.... What's that?... I suppose you're right--we'll have the S.P.C.A. on our necks for sacrificing four more test animals. What the hell, they can't expect us to send men on these experimental flights!" Basset talked for a moment longer and then replaced the phone. He sighed. Another report. Another failure. Another requiem to be written for a lost ship--and four chimpanzees.