Relations remained strained until Rolf and Radchev, a swarthy giant with an unexpected, and quite startling shock of corn-white hair, arrived on the scene. A gingerly magnetic-tracer investigation was conducted over the suspected area until the eroded entrance of the narrow mine-shaft the prospectors had sunk was located. Then Rolf and a couple of Station hands, leaving all electronic gadgets turned off, approached via tracto-scooter and went down the shaft. When they got back, Rolf nodded. “It’s sunk a lot deeper under the ground surface here,” he said. “I’m becoming convinced there’s at least one of them on every stable planet and satellite. In some frightening, inexplicable fashion, they’re interrelated--which is why we got sent tracking off to Callisto.” Radchev said, “You think there’s one on Earth then?” Rolf nodded. “Probably buried far underground. The more eroded the area, the closer they lie to the surface. On Callisto, the creature was actually exposed. Here, it’s buried just under the subsoil.” “Then why hasn’t one been found on Luna?” Radchev asked. “I thought Earth’s moon was completely charted for mineral elements.” Rolf hesitated, but Lynne came up with the answer. “I think it’s because the creature needs the gaseous elements of an atmosphere to survive. The atmosphere is thick on Earth, thin here. On Callisto it lies frozen on the ground. But it’s there. The Moon has none--just as Deimos and Phobos have none. We know it doesn’t exist on them.” “I think you’re right,” said Rolf, his face grim. “Somehow, this mysterious entity has to breathe. I have a hunch that otherwise it’s nothing more than a sort of super-brain, which has long since surrendered all other physical properties.” “Then,” said Redchev, puzzled, “why is it we haven’t stumbled across a single one of the creatures. This one must have--” “It has probably been here forever by our measure of time,” Lynne interrupted eagerly. “Can’t you see, Mr. Radchev, that it hasn’t been discovered sooner because non-telepathic human mental processes were too far below its reception or broadcast level to make contact with it?” The Agriculture boss shook his massive head. “That won’t do, I’m afraid,” he said. “The coincidence is too steep. Don’t you think it remarkable to put it mildly that, almost to the moment when you discover your new life-form telepathically the non-telepathic E.I.A. should have stumbled into it on Callisto? I tell you--I’m not convinced.” “But you will be!” Lynne persisted. “We know it can be irritated by human physical and mental contact under some conditions, and that when the irritation is sufficient, it strikes back at its tormentor. Think of the unexplained blasts and disasters that have killed men and destroyed their works all through known history. Isn’t it possible, even probable, that some of those disasters were caused by our new friend under the stimulation of physical irritation?”