“What use is this planet to anybody?” Jan Morten-son wanted to know. “Why did they bother terraforming’ it?”

Steen Steen suggested it might have radioactives. Mirrik squashed that stupid idea, pointing out that there were no metals heavier than tin here, and not much even of the lighter ones. Pilazinool believed the place had some strategic importance, maybe as a refueling stop or a monitoring station for the more valuable worlds in the next system over. But Leroy Chang, who has your true Harvard man’s knack for being anti-Earth wherever possible, blurted his own explanation for why we had converted this planet to a place fit for Earthmen: politics and greed. We grabbed it, he said, to keep anybody else from having it. Pure and simple imperialism. Dumb imperialism, too, since we’ve spent a couple billion credits a year since the turn of the century to maintain and develop a place that has no natural resources, no tourist potential, and no other intrinsic value.

Dr. Schein challenged this interpretation, and off everybody went on a political discussion. Except me. That’s one pocket I refuse to climb into.

While this was going on, Mirrik got bored and wandered away, and began digging up the turf just to have something to do. He tusked up a couple of tons of dirt in a restless way, stopped, peered into the hole he had made, and let out a booming yell. You’d have thought he accidentally had uncovered a cache of High Ones artifacts.

Well, he hadn’t. But he had found a burial ground of Higby V natives. Maybe eighty centimeters down, the extinct inhabitants of this planet had parked about a dozen specimens, complete with weapon points, bone necklaces, and long strings of what looked like teeth. The skeletons were short and squat, with huge hind legs and little grasping paws on top.