Julian Varon bent over the mutilated form suppressing an impulse to retch. It was unmistakably a _true_ Mutant from Ganymede, where the dark flower of their civilization had reached obscure heights. The features of the man were unmistakeable. As he straightened, Julian raised his left arm exposing the tiny double star at his wrist, symbol of his rank, and belatedly reported to the _Dekka_. "A Ganymedean Mutant, _Serenity_!" Julian spoke, facing toward the Dais where he knew Astran stood behind the veiling curtain of light shed by the diamond star. "This dubious honor is the second one tonight," Julian said with a mirthless laugh. "I've fought one bare-handed, the other with Power-rapiers, I should like the next encounter to be with 'Electro-cannon!' However, perhaps these two encounters are something of a clue. Surely," he paused and swept the assembled Dekkans with his eyes, "they must form part of a definite pattern." "Please continue, Control-Facet," Astran's voice held a note of suppressed excitement. "Simply that it has occurred to me, that while we on Io, the dwellers on Europa and even Callisto have been ravaged by this hellish disease, Ganymede has failed even to _mention_ the scourge in their reports. Even taking for granted their genius for silence and intrigue--their aloofness from their sister-worlds' affairs, such a catastrophe as this Plague should have blasted them out of their shells, _if they have been ravaged, too_! If not," Julian paused deliberately, and into these words he put all the dynamic, irresistible power of his trained voice, "_we should investigate, regardless of consequences_!" "Investigate!" Astran's voice held a grim sardonicism. "If what I _intuit_ is true, we, the Dekka are prepared to underwrite Jovian history for the next hundred years!" Julian sighed with a sudden feeling of exultance, and he knew why. Wryly, he was aware that what Astran termed "intuit" was an integer of vastly complicated cerebro-geometric figures; graphs of brainpower coordinates and emotional integers, whose tendrils root-like delved into the innermost recesses of the human mind. And Astran was perhaps the greatest Cerebro-Geometrician of them all. Quite obviously the scientists of the Dekka had been far from idle. And, the expose of the Mutant spy had been like a piece in a jig-saw puzzle falling into place and revealing the beginnings of a pattern of some sort, but as yet not clear. "Quorum!" Astran's voice rose imperatively. "Astro-operatives and Facets clear the Hall. All others remain." The real session was about to begin. Julian Varon knew it all by heart. The endless series of individual reports on every nook and corner of their worlds, so that each member of the Dekka present would be acquainted with the sum total of their individual experiences. Still they remained masked. * * * * *