Our Number One boss is no dud. He’s Dr. Milton Schein of Marsport University, and as you probably are aware he’s the man who excavated the first site of High Ones artifacts near Syrtis Major. That makes him the original paleoarchaeologist — the first man doing anything in billion-year-old sites — and since he practically invented the science, it’s hard to find fault with him. He’s superb, though a little frightening when he begins to talk shop. In person he’s a sweet warm silver-haired type, very lovable except when his professional jealousies start to show. He loathes Dr. Horkkk, and vice versa, I gather because they both have such high reputations in the field. They equally detest our third boss, who is Pilazinool of Shilamak, the big expert on intuitive analysis. Which means the science of jumping to conclusions. He’s good at it.

The Shilamakka, you know, have this thing about turning themselves into machines limb by limb and organ by organ. They start off looking surprisingly humanoid; that is, the right number of heads, legs, arms, and such things. I understand they have different arrangements of joints, more fingers, fewer toes, and a couple likesuch variosities. But then they start tinkering with the basic model. A Shilamakka regards himself as zero if he doesn’t have at least one artificial limb by the time he gets into adolescence. A puberty rite, sort of. And on they go through life, lopping off limbs and putting pretty metal things in their places. The less of the basic you that’s left, the higher caste you are. Pilazinool is a top-rung Shilamakka, prestige maximum, and it’s my guess that he’s a 90 percent transplant, with not much more than his brain still organic.