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Grateful for any legitimate excuse to delay the unpleasant, Varian gestured Trizein to be seated on something more comfortable than a bench and tapped out a sequence for her survey tapes, compiled when she and Terilla were doing the charts.

“It is patently obvious,” said the chemist, when he had seen all the species she had so far taped and tagged, “that someone has played a joke. Not necessarily on me, or you, or us,” he added, glancing about from under his heavy brows. “Those animals were planted here.”

Bonnard gargled an exclamation, not as controlled in his reaction to that phrase as Lunzie or Varian.

“Planted?” Varian managed a wealth of amused disbelief in that laughed word.

“Well, certainly they didn’t spring up in an independent evolution, my dear Varian. They must have been brought here . . .”

“Fang-face, and herbivores and the golden fliers? Oh, Trizein, it isn’t possible. Besides which, the difference in pigmentation indicates that they evolved here . . .”

“Oh yes, but they started on Earth. I don’t consider camouflage or pigmentation a real deterrent to my theory. All you’d need is one common ancestor. Climate, food, terrain would all bring about specialization over the millennia and the variety of types would evolve. The big herbivores, for instance, undoubtedly developed from Struthiomimus but so did Tyrannosaurus and quite possibly, your pteranodon. The possibilities are infinite from one mutual ancestor. Look at humans, for instance, in our infinite variations.”

“I’ll grant it’s possible, Trizein, but why? Who would do such a crazy thing? For what purpose? Why perpetrate such monstrosities as fang-face? I could see the golden fliers . . .”

“My dear, variety is essential in an ecological balance. And the dinosaurs were marvelous creatures. They ruled old Earth for more millennia than we poor, badly engineered Homo sapiens have existed as a species. Who knows why they faded? What catastrophe occurred . . . More than likely a radical change in temperature following a magnetic shift—that’s my theory at any rate, and I’ll support it with the evidence we’ve found here. Oh, I do think this is a splendid development. A planet that has remained in the Mesozoic condition for untold millions of years, and likely to remain so for unknown millennia longer. That thermal core, of course, is the factor that . . .”

“Who, Trizein, rescued the dinosaurs from Earth and put them here to continue in all their savage splendor?” asked Varian.

“The Others?”

Bonnard gasped.

“Trizein, you’re teasing. The Others destroy life, not save it.” Varian spoke sternly.

Trizein looked unremorseful. “Everyone is entitled to a bit of a joke. The Theks planted them, of course.”

“Have the Theks planted us, too?” asked Bonnard, scared.

“Good heavens!” Trizein stared at Bonnard, his expression turning from surprise at the idea to delight. “Do you really think we might be, Varian? When I consider all the investigatory work I must do . . .” Lunzie and Varian exchanged shocked glances. Trizein would welcome such a development. ” . . . to prove my conclusions of warm-bloodedness. I wonder, Varian, you didn’t show me any true saurians, that is to say, any cold-blooded species, because if they did develop here as well, as a specialization, of course, it would substantially improve my hypothesis. This world appears to remain consistently hotter than old Earth . . . Well, Varian, what’s the matter?”

“We’re not planted, Trizein.”

Daunted and disappointed, he looked next to Lunzie, who also shook her head.

“Oh, what a pity.” He was so dejected that Varian, despite the seriousness of the moment, had difficulty suppressing her amusement. “Well, I serve you all fair warning that I do not intend to keep my nose to the data disk and terminal keyboard any more. I shall take time off to investigate my theory. Why didn’t anyone think to show me a frame of the animals whose flesh I’ve been analyzing so often? The time I’ve wasted . . .”

“Analyzing animal tissues?” Lunzie spoke first, her eyes catching Varian