It is maybe two hours afterwards, Eru having adjourned the meeting abruptly so that we can ... er ... take in the implications of the new data. Lennie has gone off somewhere by himself; Kirsty has gone after him with a view to Mothering him; Eru, I suspect, is looking for Kirsty; Pavel and Aro and Dillie and the Crow are in a cabin arguing in whispers; Nick and P. Zapotec are exploring one of the Hoppers, cargo-carrying, drop-shaped, and I only hope they don't hop through the hull in it. B and I having done a tour of the ship and ascertained all this have withdrawn to the Conference Room because we are tired of our cabins and this seems to be the only other place to sit. B breaks a long silence with the remark that However often you see it M'Clare's technique is something to watch, like choosing my statement to open with, it broke the ice beautifully. I say, "Shall I tell you something?" B says Yes if it's interesting. "My statement," I inform her, "ran something like this: The best hope of inducing a suspension of the aggressive attitude of both parties, long enough to offer hope of ultimate reconciliation, lies in the intrusion of a new factor in the shape of an outside force seen to be impartially hostile to both." B says: "Gosh. Come to think of it Liz you have not written like that in years, you have gone all pompous like everyone else; well that makes it even _more_ clever of M'Clare." Enter Cray Patterson and drapes himself sideways on a chair, announcing that his own thoughts begin to weary him. I say this does not surprise me, at all. "Lizzie my love," says he, "you are twice blessed being not only witty yourself but a cause of wit in others; was that bit of Primitive Lee with which M'Clare regaled us really not from the hand of the mistress, or was it a mere pastiche?" I say Whoever wrote that it was not me anyway. "It seemed to me pale and luke-warm compared with the real thing," says Cray languidly, "which brings me to a point that, to quote dear Kirsty, seems to have been missed." I say, "Yep. Like what language it was that these people wrote their log in that we can be _certain_ the Incognitans won't know." "More than that," says B, "we didn't decide who they are or where they were coming from or how they came to crash or anything." "Come to think of it, though," I point out, "the language and a good many other things must have been decided already because of getting the right hypnotapes and translators on board." B suddenly lights up. "Yes, but look, I bet that's what we're here for, I mean that's why they picked us instead of Space Department people--the ship's got to have a past history, it has to come from a planet somewhere only no one must ever find out _where_ it's supposed to be. Someone will have to fake a log, only I don't see how--" "The first reel with data showing the planet of origin got damaged during the crash," says Cray impatiently.