fted out a soft purple stick. It
hardened quickly and crumpled to dust as he tried to smell it. He
scooped up a handful of the dust and brought it to his mouth.

"That might be extract of strychnine," Hellman said casually.

* * * * *

Casker abruptly dropped the dust and wiped his hands.

"After all," Hellman pointed out, "granted that this is a warehouse--a
cache, if you wish--we don't know what the late inhabitants considered
good fare. Paris green salad, perhaps, with sulphuric acid as
dressing."

"All right," Casker said, "but we gotta eat. What're you going to do
about all this?" He gestured at the hundreds of boxes, cans and
bottles.

"The thing to do," Hellman said briskly, "is to make a qualitative
analysis on four or five samples. We could start out with a simple
titration, sublimate the chief ingredient, see if it forms a
precipitate, work out its molecular makeup from--"

"Hellman, you don't know what you're talking about. You're a
librarian, remember? And I'm a correspondence school pilot. We don't
know anything about titrations and sublimations."

"I know," Hellman said, "but we should. It's the right way to go about
it."

"Sure. In the meantime, though, just until a chemist drops in, what'll
we do?"

"This might help us," Hellman said, holding up the book. "Do you know
what it is?"

"No," Casker said, keeping a tight grip on his patience.

"It's a pocket dictionary and guide to the Helg language."

"Helg?"

"The planet we're on. The symbols match up with those on the boxes."

Casker raised an eyebrow. "Never heard of Helg."

"I don't believe the planet has ever had any contact with Earth,"
Hellman said. "This dictionary isn't Helg-English. It's
Helg-Aloombrigian."

Casker remembered that Aloombrigia was the home planet of a small,
adventurous reptilian race, out near the center of the Galaxy.

"How come you can read Aloombrigian?" Casker asked.

"Oh, being a librarian isn't a completely useless profession," Hellman
said modestly. "In my spare time--"

"Yeah. Now how about--"

"Do you know," Hellman said, "the Aloombrigians probably helped the
Helgans leave their planet and find another. They sell services like
that. In which case, this building very likely is a food cache!"

"Suppose you start translating," Casker suggested wearily, "and maybe
find us something to eat."

They opened boxes until they found a likely-looking substance.
Laboriousl