"Lizzie, I believe you're right. I have a sort of vague memory of someone asking how I was--and I gave what I took to be a truthful answer. I remember it seemed quite inconceivable that I could be alive. In fact I still don't understand it. Neither Yardo nor Miss Laydon could tell me. How _did_ you get me out of that ship?" Well, I do my best to explain, glossing over one or two points; at the finish he closes his eyes and says nothing for a while. Then he says, "So except for this one man who saw you, you left no traces at all?" Not that I know of, but-- "Do you know, five minutes later there were at least twenty men in that bay, most of them scientists? They don't seem to have found anything suspicious. Visibility was bad, of course, and you can't leave foot-prints in shingle--" Hold on, what _is_ all this? M'Clare says, "We've had two couriers while you were asleep. Yes, I know it's not ordinarily possible for a ship on Mass-Time to get news. One of these days someone will have an interesting problem in Cultural Engineering, working out how to integrate some of these Space Force secrets into our economic and social structure without upsetting the whole of the known volume. Though courier boats make their crews so infernally sick I doubt whether the present type will ever come into common use. Anyway, we've had transcripts of a good many broadcasts from Incognita, the last dated four days ago; and as far as we can tell they're interpreting _Gilgamesh_ just as we meant them to. "The missile, by the way, was experimental, waiting to be test-fired the next day. The man in charge saw _Gilgamesh_ on the alarm screens and got trigger-happy. The newscasters were divided as to whether he should be blamed or praised; they all seem to feel he averted a menace, at least temporarily, but some of them think the invaders could have been captured alive. "The first people on the scene came from a scientific camp; you and Miss Laydon saw their lights on the way down. You remember that area is geophysically interesting? Well, by extraordinary good luck an international group was there studying it. They rushed straight off to the site of the landing--they actually saw _Gilgamesh_, and she registered on some of their astronomical instruments, too. They must be a reckless lot. What's more, they started trying to locate her on the sea bottom the next day. Found both pieces; they're still trying to locate the nose. They were all set to try raising the smaller piece when their governments both announced in some haste that they were sending a properly equipped expedition. Jointly. "There's been no mention in any newscast of anyone seeing fairies or sea maidens--I expect the poor devil thinks you were a hallucination." So we brought it off. * * * * * I am very thankful in a distant sort of way, but right now the Incognitans have no more reality for me than the Lost Kafoozalum. M'Clare came through alive.