So we adjourned to Marnag's courtyard, which was the nearest dueling place, and it was a nice little fight, and I won. Quite a group gathered around, and I was pleased to see that several of my friends were making bets on me. Some of Sephar's sycophants lugged him off to the hospital to have a fractured wing-tip treated. The rest came home with me and we spent our winnings on a good dinner with plenty of mastonyi to wash it down. Several of us speculated about the Thinker, and we wondered if his "research" wasn't a fake and if he'd just decided to enjoy a game like the rest of us. "After all," Marnag pointed out, "he might be only a boy. You can't tell with a Thinker. I suppose young Thinkers can be frivolous and rebellious like our own youngsters." Nipar, who is something of a wag, yelled: "Hey, listen to Marnag--he's Thinking! Come on, Marnag, are you really a Thinker in disguise? Let's see if that green hair of yours is dyed--you could have shaved the beard!" And he poured a pitcher of mastonyi right over Marnag's head to find out if the color would come off. After that, the party got really rough, and I don't remember the rest of it. * * * * * A whole ganath after that, the Thinkers sent one of their messengers to tell us in the Council that we were summoned to a meeting in the Far Colony. That doesn't happen often, so we knew something extremely important must be up. I for one was all of a twitter. Not one of us connected the summons with that Thinker who had come to the phph contest between Gral and Hodnuth. That was our stupidity. We should have guessed it when we found the two champions had been sent for also. Gral flew next to me on the trip, and of all things, both he and Hodnuth were carrying with them several phph pebbles which the Thinkers had ordered them to bring along. It's hard to tell the Thinkers apart--at least for us who aren't Thinkers--but I recognized the one who had been at the game. He sat right by Hledo, who always acts as their spokesman when we consult them about anything. "Welcome and thank you for coming so promptly," Hledo began. "Did you two phph players bring the pebbles?" Gral and Hodnuth handed over the load, and Hledo passed it on to the one we knew. "This is Myrwan," Hledo said, "and he will tell you the urgent thing he has Thought." "I became interested a long time ago," Myrwan began in the rather rusty voice all the Thinkers except Hledo have--they spend most of their time in study and meditation, and don't talk much among themselves--"in a question that seems never to have occurred to any of Us. "Where do phph pebbles go when they are thrown beyond our feeble gravity and escape into outer space? What becomes of them in the end? And who, if anyone, collects them, and what conclusions about them and our world do such persons draw?" I raised my hand to ask a question, and Myrwan nodded.