"If we could only get some scrap of description," said Walsh. "Surely he can tell size, for instance? If we knew whether the murderer was a big man or a little man, even that would help."

"You're thinking, I'll venture, of a particularly big man," said Dr. Meers. "Carson Jahore, the ambassador from the Jovian Federation."

Horitz nodded. "A prime suspect. The Federation has always been too big for its planets. They'd give anything for a space-drive that would let them beat Earth to the punch in interstellar colonization."

"Well," said Walsh, "what about my question? Can't Oscar tell the difference between a big man and a little one?"

Dr. Meers' brow wrinkled. "Not in the way a man could," he said. "If you put them side by side, then perhaps yes. Perhaps, mind you. But—don't you see, he hasn't got one of our senses, except touch. Instead, he probably has a whole gamut of his own. Lord only knows how he differentiates between one man and another, or between one apple and another. He doesn't do it our way, anyhow."

"Look here," said Captain Tooker impatiently, "we're wasting time. Why can't we just search everybody on board?"

"Have you got authority," asked Horitz carefully, "to strip Ambassador Jahore and his wife to the skin and put them and all their belongings through five hundred and twenty different chemical solutions? For a starter, that is? If you have, go ahead. I haven't."

The captain shuddered.

"Just the same," said Horitz, standing up, "you're right; we are wasting time. Have you got that passenger list, Captain?"

"Yes; here," Tooker said, producing it. "I've got to get back. If anything happens, buzz me. And it had better be soon!" he added as he left.

"All right." Horitz turned to the two scientists. "Dr. Meers, can you and Dr. Ilyanov make Oscar understand this much: that he's to signal when he sees the man who was with Thomasson on the observation deck this morning?"

Meers shrugged. "We can try," he said. "I don't promise anything." He pulled his chair over to the crude Morse set on the table and began clicking the key.

Oscar's tendrils waved slowly back and forth, as if he were interested in anything in the world but radio clicks.

Meers stopped, waited a moment, then tried again.

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