e who trundles
it.

I prowl round it looking for tricks but it seems standard; I take a
seat in it, put on the headset and turn the switch.

Hypothesis confirmed, I suppose.

There is a reel in place and it contains background information on a
problem in Cultural Engineering all set out the way we are taught to
do it in Class. The Problem concerns developments on a planet got
settled by two groups during the Exodus and been isolated ever since.

Well while a Reading Machine is running there is no time to think, it
crams in data at full speed and evaluation has to wait. However my
subconscious goes into action and when the reel stops it produces a
Suspicion full grown.

The thing is too tidy.

When we were First Year we dreamed up situations like this and argued
like mad over them, but they were a lot too neat for real life and too
dramatic as well.

However one thing M'Clare said to us, and every other lecturer too,
just before the Finals, was Do not spend time trying to figure what
the examiner was after but answer the question as set; I am more than
halfway decided this is some mysterious Oriental idea of a joke but I
get busy thinking in case it is not.

* * * * *

The Problem goes like this:

The planet is called Incognita in the reel and it is right on the edge
of the known volume of space, it got settled by two groups somewhere
between three and three and a half centuries ago. The rest of the
human race never heard of it till maybe three years back.

(Well it happens that way, inhabited planets are still turning up
eight or ten a century, on account of during the Exodus some folk were
willing to travel a year or more so as to get away from the rest).

The ship that spotted the planet as inhabited did not land, but
reported to Central Government, Earth, who shipped observers out to
take a look.

(There was a rumor circulating at Russett that the Terry Government
might employ some of us on that kind of job, but it never got
official. I do not know whether to believe this bit or not.)

It is stated the observers landed secretly and mingled with the
natives unobserved.

(This is not physically impossible but sounds too like a Field Trip to
be true.)

The observers are not named but stated to be graduates of the Cultural
Engineering Class.

They put in a few months' work and sent home unanimous Crash Priority
reports the situation is _bad_, getting worse and the pr