"And the answer to your second question is that we can only hope. Hope that all of the pebbles already in their possession are free of--shall we say, incriminating evidence? All we can guarantee is that all they find in the future will be. Does that answer you satisfactorily?" "It will have to," muttered Sephar sullenly. I moved away from him and was glad to notice that I was not the only one. "What I have said to you," continued the Thinker calmly, "you may communicate to any of the Real People you wish. You will naturally keep it from the Ground Dwellers; there is no reason to agitate them at present. Time enough for that if we should ever need them as soldiers--which I devoutly hope we never shall." "But who will make the artificial pebbles if the Ground Dwellers aren't to know about them?" asked Marnag. "What about our slogan--'Thought from the Thinkers, government and administration from the Real People, technical skill and heavy labor from the Ground Dwellers'?" "_We_ shall handle that. When you go home, tell Earnig I want to see him at once. Brief him first. He and his Bureau will see that the job is done, and the Ground Dwellers needn't be told just what they are making. They'll be delighted to hear that We are planning a new kind of phph pebble to increase the interest of the game--they love it whenever one is batted clear away." * * * * * Well, all this was last ganath. The new pebbles are in use. So far nothing has happened--unless you count the fact that, according to Myrwan, those peculiar radio waves have ceased. Let us hope that if his whole theory is correct--and Thinkers don't talk about their Thoughts till they're pretty sure of them--those alien beings have given up, decided either that they were mistaken and there is no intelligence here able to communicate, or that they themselves haven't the ability to interpret our answers. Sephar? Oh, he isn't around any more. One of the Thinkers is doing some experiments in Psychological Adjustment. Hledo asked the Council's recommendation of somebody they could commandeer as a test subject, according to the Agreement on Thinkers' Privileges, and I got them to suggest Sephar. He was very nasty about it, but I ignored his underbred invective. I felt it my duty also respectfully to remind Hledo of Sephar's past indiscretions, in case they'd forgotten. Usually when the Thinkers have finished with a subject he's no longer of much use and they put him in a rest home for the remainder of his life. So since I've done pretty well for myself lately, I was able to buy Sephar's home, with its nagh-plated roof-opening, and move into it. He had a very attractive wife, who of course couldn't go with him to the Far Colony. It just goes to show that virtue (as one of the Thinkers once remarked wittily) is its own reward. End of Project Gutenberg's Where the PHPH Pebbles Go, by Miriam Allen deFord