The idea that the moon should be anything but rock had shaken the men. They argued the point for most of the evening. Phillip tried to keep an open mind on the matter, always hopeful that some perfectly logical answer to the riddle would come along. John almost crowed. He praised Darwin. This, he said, was what the world needed, since every main support for Evolution had been destroyed over the last century. Now. he said, here was something at last which would prove that intelligent life could evolve out of non-life, because, he said, life had evolved elsewhere in the universe, and come to this patch to build a metal moon for Earth.

Paul contemplated the matter quietly. He refused to be drawn on the subject, preferring rather to defer any judgment until further investigation had been made. He sat with his back to the wall, knees drawn up, and gazed out at the dark craters outside the glass of the dining-room.

Ralph wanted to know if Earth should be told. He hoped it wouldn't affect his pay if Earth found out. He knew he hadn't been meeting the terms of his contract over the last two days, but he didn't want to miss out on the credit he thought he deserved for the discovery.

Phillip decided to keep the matter quiet. He knew this would look bad on his records when the matter was finally revealed, but he also felt that, as the one responsible for the work in this sector, he had a right to make some decisions on his own.

"What I'd like to know," said John, sipping on a bag of flavored, mineralized water, "Is why would a race of intelligent beings, if that's what it was, want to go building a metal ball and covering it with dirt?"

"You assume too much," said Phillip.

"Well, what do you think it was?"

"Mankind could have built this ball for some other reason, and then abandoned the project, or been forced to stop."

"Mankind! You mean cavemen and Neanderthals!"

"What a pity you are so ignorant of the facts," said Phillip, with a tone of respect, "The Earth is littered with the remains of life. We know these remains as fossils, but they represent a giant graveyard. Millions of tons of animals and plants, all buried in mud and shingle. 80% of the Earth's land surface is sedimentary, laid down by the action of water. This global store of evidence also contains many remarkable finds, such as ornaments, pieces of wall with unknown writing, clay pots, coins, electrical devices, and many other things.