had finished the almost-tasteless meal he began the search.

"Meta, where can I find historical records of Pyrrus?"

"I've never heard of any ... I really don't know."

"But there has to be something--_somewhere_," he insisted. "Even if your
present-day culture devotes all of its time and energies to survival,
you can be sure it wasn't always that way. All the time it was
developing, people were keeping records, making notes. Now where do we
look? Do you have a library here?"

"Of course," she said. "We have an excellent technical library. But I'm
sure there wouldn't be any of _that_ sort of thing there."

Trying not to groan, Jason stood up. "Let me be the judge of that. Just
lead the way."

* * * * *

Operation of the library was completely automatic. A projected index
gave the call number for any text that had to be consulted. The tape
was delivered to the charge desk thirty seconds after the number had
been punched. Returned tapes were dropped through a hopper and refiled
automatically. The mechanism worked smoothly.

"Wonderful," Jason said, pushing away from the index. "A tribute to
technological ingenuity. Only it contains nothing of any value to us.
Just reams of textbooks."

"What _else_ should be in a library?" Meta sounded sincerely puzzled.

Jason started to explain, then changed his mind. "Later we will go into
that," he said. "Much later. Now we have to find a lead. Is it possible
that there are any tapes--or even printed books--that aren't filed
through this machine?"

"It seems unlikely, but we could ask Poli. He lives here somewhere and
is in charge of the library--filing new books and tending the
machinery."

The single door into the rear of the building was locked, and no amount
of pounding could rouse the caretaker.

"If he's alive, this should do it," Jason said. He pressed the
out-of-order button on the control panel. It had the desired affect.
Within five minutes the door opened and Poli dragged himself through it.

Death usually came swiftly on Pyrrus. If wounds slowed a man down, the
ever-ready forces of destruction quickly finished the job. Poli was the
exception to this rule. Whatever had attacked him originally had done an
efficient job. Most of the lower part of his face was gone. His left arm
was curled and useless. The damage to his body and legs had left him
with the bare capability to stumble from one spot to the next.

Yet he still had on