"Yes, that's about it. Well, you see, on our planet we never had been inclined to differences in position. We are not a highly organized people. In fact, there never has been any need for organization at all. Our physical wants are almost nil, so there has been no incentive for one to get ahead of the others. But our progress committee wanted to become familiar with Earth's system, because we work on the theory that everything of that sort has advantages. So seven hundred and seventy-seven of us were sent on a rocket ship which we bought from the robots of the Eighteenth Planet, to investigate Earth's social system."

"Wait a minute," said Healey, sitting up. "Did you say eleven thousand years ago?"

Mr. Zytztz nodded. "We landed on Earth and found a rather highly developed civilization—that is, compared to what you have now, of course, because I have no other standard. We became acquainted—"

"One second," said Healey sharply. "What part of Earth did you visit?"

"There were only two continents that interested us. One in what is now approximately the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, and the other in what is now the Southwest Pacific."

Healey jumped up. "You don't say! Atlantis and Lemuria! That's what I argued in my thesis fifty years ago. That's what got me kicked out of active duty in the Air Marines. That's what made me an outcast. Those are the two continents that Senator Philipuster maintained were nothing but myths!"

"They were quite real then," said Mr. Zytztz.

"Well, I'll just be plain scuttled!"

CHAPTER IX

Friends Indeed!

Eyes flashing with eagerness, Healey sat down again because he was weak from excitement. After all these years his graduation thesis had been vindicated. By Mr. Zytztz!

"There was only a chain of islands where your eastern mountains are in North America, and there were some primitive peoples in Egypt, and Southeastern Europe," Mr. Zytztz went on. "But the peoples of Atlantis and Lemuria, who had some interchange and seemed to have developed concurrently, had quite a modern civilization. They had extensive family relationships, marriage, religion, and so on, but the thing that interested us most was the eminence given to persons of education, on 

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