nd loud
unbelief, and now shock. Anything could come next.

* * * * *

He stood with the warm wind blowing in his face and watched the
people. In the bitter mood that gripped him he was amused by their
reactions. Some of them walked around aimlessly, but most, those who
were active in the various departments, soon started about the routine
business of running tests on planetary conditions. They seemed to
work without thinking, by force of habit, their faces dazed and
uncaring.

Conditioning, Hugh thought. Starting their reports. The reports that
they know perfectly well no one will ever read.

He wandered over to where several of the young men were sending up an
atmosphere balloon and jotting down the atmospheric constituents as
recorded by the instruments.

"How's it going?" he said.

"Earth-norm. Naturally--" The young man flushed.

"Temperature's up though. Ninety-three. And a seventy-seven percent
humidity."

He left them and walked down across the rocks to the ocean's edge. Two
young girls were down there before him, sampling the water, running
both chemical and biological probing tests.

"Hello, Mr. McCann," the taller girl said dully. "Want our report?"

"Found anything?" He knew already that there was nothing to find. If
there were life the instruments would have recorded its presence.

"No. Water temperature eighty-six. Sodium chloride four-fifths Earth
normal." She looked up, surprised. "Why so low?"

"More water in the ocean, maybe. Or maybe we've had a nova since we
were here last."

It was getting late, almost sunset. Soon it would be time for the
photographic star-charts to be made. Hugh brought himself up short and
smiled bitterly. He too was in the grip of habit. Still, why not?
Perhaps they could estimate, somehow, how many millions of years had
passed.

Why? What good would it do them to find out?

After a while the sun set and a little later the full moon rose, hazy
and indistinct behind the clouds of water vapor. Hugh stared at it,
watched it rise higher until it cleared the horizon, a great bloated
bulk. Then he sighed and shook his head to clear it and started to
work. The clouds were thick. He had to move the screening adjustment
almost to its last notch before the vapor patterns blocked out and the
stars were bright and unwavering and ready to be photographed. He
inserted the first plate and snapped the picture of the stars whose
names he knew b