Professor Nichols was a wisp of a man who peered at them through small, bright eyes nearly hidden in fleshy folds. Although his body was about the shortest Brice had ever seen on a man, the brain beneath his crop of white hair had made him a giant. A linguist all his life, Professor Nichols spoke a dozen languages fluently, in addition to reading and writing them. Brice knew him by reputation and grinned at him as he came into the empty Dean's office. "Gentlemen?" He favored them with a smile. "I'm Nichols. Doctor Bendtolz said you wanted to speak with me." Brice introduced himself and the Federal men and, after a round of handshaking, Cartwell handed the chunk of metal to the professor. "We'd like to know about the writing, Professor," Sam put in. Nichols examined the etching on the metal for some time before he looked up. His small eyes searched their faces in turn, then he smiled thinly as though witnessing a very bad gag. "Are you gentlemen playing some sort of joke?" he asked. "The Government doesn't pay us to play jokes," Cartwell informed him cryptically. "Do you know the language?" Professor Nichols shook his head. "I know every spoken language in the world, and I know many of the dead languages at least by sight. I don't know this one." "You're serious?" The old man nodded. "This must be some sort of jest on me. There is no language on Earth, dead or alive, that matches this." "We aren't joking, Professor," Nolan said seriously. "Then, my friend, someone must be playing a joke on you. No linguist can identify this language. I'll stake my reputation on that. Where did you get this?" Cartwell smiled. "I'm sorry, professor, but we cannot disclose that information. We'll also have to ask you to forget about it. Government business, you know." "Yes, of course. Is there anything else? I have a class in three minutes..." "No, that's all. Thank you, Professor Nichols." "You're welcome. Good day, gentlemen." As the door closed behind him, a thick silence fell over the three men. Cartwell looked out the window and pulled at his lower lip with a blunt thumb and forefinger; Nolan sat on the edge of a desk, looking at the strange writing as an ethnologist might stare at the bones of the missing link. "What now?" Sam asked, softly. "Call in a Martian to get his opinion?" "It's not funny, Sam." "Don't I know it," Sam shot back. "We've got some kind of tiger by the tail in this case ... a tiger bigger than the Kremlin, and I'm wondering how this will all sound in a report to the capital." Cartwell snorted and ran a hand through his blond hair. "I'll let you write the report, Sam." "You go to hell. I like my job and I don't want to get booted out because of a science fiction twist on an otherwise normal investigation." "What's the next move?" Nolan asked, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in his stomach. Cartwell shrugged. "Go back to the wreck, I guess and try to figure out something."