long silence from his superior.

"None," Jerry admitted, not turning his head. "It's pretty damned difficult to find a solution to a problem until you're sure what the problem is."

"Well," said the tech, "we played the radar all over the area where the tape said the thing was located. We got nothing. Maybe the kid's mother came back."

"Just a second—" said Jerry. "Ensign, could you rig the machine to give us, not a written transcript of that alien's description, but a drawing of it?"

"Jeepers, sir!" choked the tech, taken aback. "I don't know. I'd have to talk with the engineers."

"It should be possible. Hell, it's got to be. When I was enhosted, my mind transmitted back every bit of info on that body. A man who only knew mechanical drawing could sketch that shape, simply by following the measurement specifications as my mind recorded them. Go on, Ensign, get with it. One way or the other, I want a look at what we're dealing with."

It was nearly midnight when Bob shook Jerry gently awake and handed him a small glossy rectangle of paper.

Jerry, blinking his eyes against the sudden onslaught of light in the room as the tech threw the wall switch, stared blearily at the paper for a moment, blank and disoriented.

"It's the picture, sir," Bob said, recognizing the bafflement on his superior's face for what it was. "I finally had the bright idea of turning the problem over to the brain, aboard the ship. It followed the specifications from the tape by drawing the picture in periods."

"In what periods?" Jerry mumbled, still trying to come awake.

"Not time-periods, sir. Punctuation. Then, when it had the thing done, on a ten-by-fourteen-inch sheet of feed-paper from its roller, I had the ship's photographer take a snapshot and reduce it in size, so it looks at least as good as the average newspaper half-tone job."

Jerry nodded, absorbing the information even as his eyes crept over the image in his hands. "Looks strangely familiar," he said, studying it closely.

"If you'll pardon what sounds like a gag, sir," began the tech, "I think that the picture—in fact, we all think—"

"Yes?" said Jerry, looking at the man.

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