operate and if necessary repair the portable carbondaters of the team,
he knew the fine points of excavation and restoration of artifacts and
had studied so many types of alien anatomy that he could make at least
an educated guess at the reconstruction of beings from fragmentary
fossil-remains or incomplete skeletons ... or exoskeletons.

But the situation on Hirlaj was one which had never before been
encountered; here he was not dealing with a dead race's remains, but
directly with members of that race. It was not a matter of sifting
fragmentary evidence of science, crafts and customs, finding out what he
could and piecing together a composite picture from the remains at hand,
as they had done with the artifacts of the Outsiders, those unknown
beings who had left the ruins of their outposts and colonies in six
galaxies already explored and settled by the Earthmen; all he had to do
here was ask the right questions and he would get his answers.

Sitting there under that massive dome, with the quiet-eyed alien before
him, Rynason couldn't completely suppress a feeling of ridiculousness.
The problem was that the Hirlaji could not be depended upon to be able
to find a particular memory-series in their minds; the race memory was
such a conglomeration that all they could do was strike randomly at
memories until the correct area was touched, and then follow up from
there. The result was usually irrelevant and unrelated information.

But he seemed to be getting somewhere now. Having spent three weeks with
Horng, gradually learning a little about the ways of his alien mind, he
had at last run across what might be the important turning-point in the
history of Hirlaj.

Horng spoke, and Rynason turned to watch the stylus of the interpreter