'I tell you what,' said Brandon after a period of silence during which Moore's rationale had obviously failed to take, 'we're marooned again. Twenty years ago today, we were marooned off Vesta. Today, we're marooned in oblivion. Now here are the three of us back together again at last, and what happened before can happen again. Twenty years ago, Warren pulled us down to Vesta. Now let's solve this new problem.'

'Wipe out the oblivion, you mean?' said Moore. 'Make ourselves famous?'

'Sure. Why not? Do you know any better way of celebrating a twentieth anniversary?'

'No, but I'd be interested to know where you expect to start. I don't think people remember the Silver Queen at all, except for Quentin, so you'll have to think of some way of bringing the wreck back to mind. That's just to begin with.'

Shea stirred uneasily and a thoughtful expression crossed his blunt countenance. 'Some people remember the Silver Queen. The insurance company does, and you know that's a funny thing, now that you bring up the matter. I was on Vesta about ten-eleven years ago, and I asked if the piece of the wreck we brought down was still there and they said sure, who would cart it away? So I thought I'd take a look at it and shot over by reaction motor strapped to my back. With Vestan gravity, you know, a reaction motor is all you need. Anyway, I didn't get to see it except from a distance. It was circled off by force-field.'

Brandon's eyebrows went sky-high. 'Our Silver Queen? For what reason?'

'I went back and asked how come? They didn't tell me and they said they didn't know I was going there. They said it belonged to the insurance company.'

Moore nodded. 'Surely. They took over when they paid off. I signed a release, giving up my salvage rights when I accepted the compensation check. You did too, I'm sure.'

Brandon said, 'But why the force-field? Why all the privacy?'

'I don't know.'

The wreck isn't worth anything even as scrap metal. It would cost too much to transport it.'

Shea said, That's right. Funny thing, though; they were bringing pieces back from space. There was a pile of it there. I could see it and it lookedlike just junk, twisted pieces of frame, you know. I asked about it and they said ships were always landing and unloading more scrap, and the insurance company had a standard price for any piece of the Silver Queen brought back, so ships in the neighbourhood of Vesta were always looking. Then, on my last voyage in, I went to see the Silver Queen again and that pile was a lot bigger.'

'You mean they're still looking?' Brandon's eyes glittered.

'I don't know. Maybe they've stopped. But the pile was bigger than it was ten-eleven years ago so they were still looking then.'

Brandon leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. 'Well, now, that's very queer. A hard-headed insurance company is spending all kinds of money, sweeping space near Vesta, trying to find pieces of a twenty-year-old wreck.'

'Maybe they're trying to prove sabotage,' said Moore.

'After twenty years? They won't get their money back even if they do. It's a dead issue.'

They may have quit looking years ago.'

Brandon stood up with decision. 'Let's ask. There's something funny here and I'm just Jabrified enough and anniversaried enough to want to find out.'

'Sure,' said Shea, 'but ask who?'

'Ask Multivac,' said Brandon.

Shea's eyes opened wide. 'Multivac! Say, Mr. Moore, do you have a Multivac outlet here?'

'Yes.'

'I've never seen one, and I've always wanted to.'

'It's nothing to look at, Mike. It looks just like a typewriter. Don't confuse a Multivac outlet with Multivac itself. I don't know anyone who's seen Multivac.'

Moore smiled at the thought. He doubted if ever in his life he would meet any of the handful of technicians who spent most of their working days in a hidden spot in the bowels of Earth tending a mile-long super-computer that was the repository of all the facts known to man, that guided man's economy, directed his scientific research, helped make his political decisions, and had millions of circuits left over to answer individual questions that did not violate the ethics of privacy.

Brandon said as they moved up the power ramp to the second floor, 'I've been thinking of installing a Multivac, Jr., outlet for the kids. Homework and things, you know. And yet I don't want to make it just a fancy and expensive crutch for them. How do you work it, Warren?'

Moore said tersely. They show me the questions first. If I don't pass them, Multivac does not see them.'

The Multivac outlet was indeed a simple typewriter arrangement and little more.

Moore set up the coordinates that opened his portion of the planet-wide network of circuits and said, 'Now listen. For the record, I'm against this and I'm only going along because it's the anniversary and because I'm just jackass enough to be curious. Now how ought I to phrase the question?'

Brandon said, 'Just ask: Are pieces of the wreck of the Silver Queen still being searched for in the neighborhood of Vesta by Trans-space Insurance? It only requires a simple yes or no.'

Moore shrugged and tapped it out, while Shea watched with awe.

The spaceman said, 'How does it answer? Does it talk?'

Moore laughed gently, 'Oh, no. I don't spend that kind of money. This model just prints the answer on a slip of tape that comes out of that slot.'

A short strip of tape did come out as he spoke. Moore removed it and, after a glance, said, 'Well, Multivac says yes.'

'Hah!' cried Brandon. Told you. Now ask why.'

'Now that's silly. A question like that would obviously be against privacy. You'll just get a yellow state-your-reason.'

'Ask and find out. They haven't made the search for the pieces secret. Maybe they're not making the reason secret.'

Moore shrugged. He tapped out: Why is Trans-space Insurance conducting its Silver Queen search-project to which reference was made in the previous question ?

A yellow slip clicked out almost at once: State Your Reason For Requiring The information Requested. 'All right,' said Brandon unabashed. 'You tell it we're the three survivors and have a right to know. Go ahead. Tell it.'

Mooretapped that out unemotional phrasing and another yellow slip was pushed out at them: Your Reason is Insufficient. No Answer Can Be Given.

Brandon said, 'I don't see they have a right to keep that secret.'

That's up to Multivac,' said Moore. 'It judges the reasons given it and if it decides the ethics of privacy is against answering, that's it. The government itself couldn't break those ethics without a court order, and the courts don't go against Multivac once in ten years. So what are you going to do?'

Brandon jumped to his feet and began the rapid walk up and down the room that was so characteristic of him. 'All right, then let's figure it out for ourselves. It's something important to justify all their trouble. We're agreed they're not trying to find evidence of sabotage, not after twenty years. But Trans-space must be looking for something, something so valuable that it's worth looking for all this time. Now what could be that valuable?'

'Mark, you're a dreamer,' said Moore.

Brandon obviously didn't hear him. 'It can't be jewels or money or securities. There just couldn't be enough to pay them back for what the search has already cost them. Not if the Silver Queen were pure gold. What would be more valuable?'

'You can't judge value, Mark,' said Moore. 'A letter might be worth a hundredth of a cent as wastepaper and yet make a difference of a hundred million dollars to a corporation, depending on what's in the letter.'

Brandon nodded his head vigorously. 'Right. Documents. Valuable papers. Now who would be most likely to have papers worth billions in his possession on that trip ?'

'How could anyone possibly say?'

'How about Dr. Horace Quentin ? How about that. Warren? He's the one people remember because he was so important. What about the papers he might have had with him? Details of a new discovery, maybe, Damn it. if I had only seen him on that trip, he might have told mesomething, just in casual conversation, you know. Did yon eversee him, Warren?'

'Not that I recall. Not to talk to. So casual conversation with me is out too. Of course, I might have passed him at some time without knowing it.'

'No, you wouldn't have,' said Shea, suddenly thoughtful. 'I think I remember something. There was one passenger who never left his cabin. The steward was talking about it He wouldn't even come out for meals.'

'And that was Quentin?' said Brandon, stopping his pacing and staring at the spaceman eagerly.

'It might have been, Mr. Brandon. It might have been him. I don't know that anyone said it was. I don't remember. But it must have been a big shot, because on a spaceship you don't fool around bringing meals to a man's cabin unless he is a big shot.'

'And Quentin was the big shot on the trip,' said Brandon, with satisfaction. 'So he had something in his cabin. Something very important. Something he was concealing.'

'He might just have been space sick,' said Moore, 'except that--' He frowned and fell silent.

'Go ahead,' said Brandon urgently. 'You remember something too?'

'Maybe. I told you I was sitting next to Dr. Hester at the last dinner. He was saying something about hoping to meet Dr. Quentin on the trip and not having any luck.'

'Sure,' cried Brandon, 'because Quentin wouldn't come out of his cabin.'

'He didn't say that. We got to talking about Quentin. though. Now what was it he said?' Moore put his hands to his temples as though trying to squeeze out the memory of twenty years ago by main force. 'I can't give you the exact words, of course, but it was something about Quentin being very theatrical or a slave of drama or something like that, and they were heading out to some scientific conference on Ganymede and Quentin wouldn't even announce the title of his paper.'

'It all fits.' Brandon resumed his rapid pacing. 'He had a new, great discovery, which he was keeping absolutely secret, because he was going to spring it on the Ganymede conference and get maximum drama out of it. He wouldn't come out of his cabin because he probably thought Hester would pump him-and Hester would, I'll bet. And then the ship hittherock and Quentin was killed. Trans-space Insuranceinvestigated, got rumors of this new discovery and figured that if they gained control of it they could make back their losses and plenty more. So they took ownership of the ship and have been hunting for Quentin's papers among the pieces ever since.'

Moore smiled, in absolute affection for the other man. 'Mark, that's a beautiful theory. The whole evening is worth it, just watching you make something out of nothing.'

'Oh, yeah ? Something out of nothing ? Let's ask Multivac again. I'll pay the bill for it this month.'

'It's all right. Be my guest. If you don't mind, though, I'm going to bring up the bottle of Jabra. I want one more little shot to catch up with you.'

'Me, too,' said Shea.

Brandon took his seat at the typewriter. His fingers trembled with eagerness as he tapped out: What was the nature of Dr. Horace Quentin's final investigations ?

Moore had returned with the bottle and glasses, when the answer came back, on white paper this time. The answer was long and the print was fine, consisting for the most part of references to scientific papers in journals twenty years old.

Moore went over it. 'I'm no physicist, but it looks to me as though he was interested in optics.'

Brandon shook his head impatiently. 'But all that is published. We want something he had not published yet.'

'We'll never find out anything about that.'

The insurance company did.'

That's just your theory.'

Brandon was kneading his chin with an unsteady hand. 'Let me ask Multivac one more question.'

He sat down again and tapped out: Give me the name and tube number of the surviving colleagues of Dr. Horace Quentin from among those associated with him at the University on whose faculty he served.

'How do you know he was on a University faculty?' asked Moore.

'If not, Multivac will tell us.'

A slip popped out. It contained only one name.

Moore said, 'Are you planning to call the man ?'

'I sure am,' said Brandon. 'Otis Fitzsimmons, with a Detroit tube number. Warren, may I--'

'Be my guest, Mark. It's still part of the game.'

Brandon set up the combination on Moore's tube keyboard. A woman's voice answered. Brandon asked for Dr. Fitzsimmons and there was a short wait.

Then a thin voice said, 'Hello.' It sounded old.

Brandon said, 'Dr. Fitzsimmons, I'm representing Trans-space Insurance in the matter of the late Dr. Horace Quentin--'

'For heaven's sake, Mark,' whispered Moore, but Brandon held up a sharply restraining hand.

There was a pause so long that a tube breakdown began to seem possible and then the old voice said, 'After all these years? Again?'

Brandon snapped his fingers in an irrepressible gesture of triumph. But he said smoothly, almost glibly, 'We're still trying to find out, Doctor, if you have remembered further details about what Dr. Quentin might have had with him on that last trip that would pertain to his last unpublished discovery.'

'Well'-there was an impatient clicking of the tongue- 'I've told you, I don't know. I don't want to be bothered with this again. I don't know that there was anything. The man hinted, but he was always hinting about some gadget or other.'

'What gadget, sir?'

'I tell you I don't know. He used a name once and I told you about that. I don't think it's significant.'

'We don't have the name in our records, sir.'

'Well, you should have. Uh, what was that name? An optikon, that's it.'

'With a K?'

'C or K. I don't know or care. Now, please, I do not wish to be disturbed again about this. Good-bye.' He was still mumbling querulously when the line went dead.

Brandon was pleased.

Moore said, 'Mark, that was the stupidest thing you could have done. Claiming a fraudulent identity on the tube is illegal. If he wants to make trouble for you--'

'Why should he? He's forgotten about it already. But don't you see, Warren? Trans-space has been asking him about this. He kept saying he'd explained all this before.'

All right. But you'd assumed that much. What else do you know?'

'We also know,' said Brandon, 'that Quentin's gadget was called on optikon.'

'Fitzsimmons didn't sound certain about that. And even so, since we already know he was specializing in optics toward the end, a name like optikon does not push us any further forward.'

'And Trans-space Insurance is looking either for the optikon or for papers concerning it. Maybe Quentin kept the details in his hat and just had a model of the instrument. After all, Shea said they were picking up metal objects. Right?'