trinket stood two inches tall, and the crossarms were proportional—though they were cylindrical in cross-section instead of rectangular.

It would have made a nice ornament for an altar, or a religious person's desk except for the tiny screw-stud that projected out of the center of the bottom. That prevented it from standing. Other taped holes in this flat base aroused his attention.

"This is no ornament," said Cal Blair, aloud. "No mere ornament would require that rugged mounting."

There seemed to be some microscopic engravings around the surface of the toroid. Cal set up the microscope and looked. Characters in the solarian were there, micro-engraved to perfection. But they were in no order. They had a randomness that would have made no sense to any but a master cryptologist—a specialist. To Cal Blair they took on a vague pattern that might be wishful thinking, and yet his reason told him that men do not microengrave things just to ornament them. A cipher it must be by all logic.

He was about to take it into the matter-converter and enlarge it mechanically, when he decided that it might spoil the things for the owner if he did and was not able to return it to the exact size. He decided on photographs.

Fully three hours later, Cal Blair had a complete set of photographic enlargements of the microengravings.

Then with the patience and skill of the specialist cryptologist, Cal Blair started to work on the characters.

The hours passed laboriously. The wastebasket filled with scrawled sheets of paper, and mathematical sequences. Letters and patterns grew beneath his pencil, and were discarded. Night passed, and the dawn grayed in the east. The sun rose, and cast its rays over Cal's desk, and still he worked on, completely lost in his work.

And then he looked startled, snapped his fingers, and headed across the room for an old book. It was a worthless antique, made by the reproducer in quantity. It was a Latin dictionary.

Latin. A dead and forgotten language.

Only his acquaintance with the folks at the Solarian Medical Association could have given him the key to recognition. He saw one word there, and it clicked. And then for four solid hours he cross checked and fought the Latin like a man working a crossword puzzle in an unknown language, matching the characters with those in the dictionary.

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