"Mass-Time wasn't so well understood then. Bit off more than they could chew. Set up a topological relation that drained all the free energy out of the system. Drive, heating system--everything. "She had emergency circuits. When the engines came on again they took over--landed the ship, more or less, on the nearest planet. Too late, of course. Heating system never came on--there was a safety switch that had to be thrown by hand. She was embedded in ice when she was found. Hull breached at one point--no other serious damage." "And the ... the crew?" Dillie ought to know better than that. "Lost with all hands," says the colonel. "How about weapons?" We are all startled. Cray is looking whitish like the rest of us but maintains his normal manner, i.e. offensive affection while pointing out that _Gilgamesh_ can hardly be taken for a Menace unless she has some means of aggression about her. Lennie says The Explorer Class were all armed-- Fine, says Cray, presumably the weapons will be thoroughly obsolete and recognizable only to a Historian-- Lennie says the construction of no weapon developed by the Space Department has ever been released; making it plain that anyone but a Nitwit knows that already. Eru and Kirsty have been busy for some time writing notes to each other and she now gives a small sharp cough and having collected our attention utters the following Address. "There is a point we seem to have missed. If I may recapitulate, the idea is to take this ship _Gilgamesh_ to Incognita and make it appear as though she had crashed there while attempting to land. I understand that the ship has been buried in the polar cap; though she must have been melted out if the people on _Crusoe_ examined the engines. Of course the cold--All the same there may have been ... well ... changes. Or when ... when we thaw the ship out again--" I find I am swallowing good and hard, and several of the others look sick, especially Lennie. Lennie has his eyes fixed on the colonel; it is not prescience, but a slight sideways movement of the colonel's eye causes him to blurt out, "What is _he_ doing here?" Meaning Mr. Yardo who seems to have been asleep for some time, with his eyes open and grinning like the spikes on a dog collar. The colonel gives him another sideways look and says, "Mr. Yardo is an expert on the rehabilitation of space-packed materials." This is stuff transported in un-powered hulls towed by grappling-beams; the hulls are open to space hence no need for refrigeration, and the contents are transferred to specially equipped orbital stations before being taken down to the planet. But-- Mr. Yardo comes to life at the sound of his name and his grin widens alarmingly. "Especially meat," he says. * * * * *