indication of how this happened."

"You think he was the dog's master?"

"Evidently."

They both stared at the sleeping animal. Then Sam shrugged, and began to fill the shallow grave again. Mark helped him push in the dirt and stamp it down into place. Finally they moved the stones back.

They were about to leave when Mark cried out, "Look at that rock!"

Staring where his son pointed, Sam saw a gray column about four feet high, with four smooth lateral sides. Rectangular prisms of this size were rare in nature. This was obviously the work of human hands, and of a blasting rod as well, to judge by the sides, which showed evidence of having been fused before weathering had cut into them. At first he had thought the column was a gravestone. But there was no inscription upon it. There was nothing but a thin deep groove that ran horizontally around the four sides, several inches from the top.

"What does it mean, Pop?"

"Let's find out. It's obviously been put here as some sort of memorial. As for this groove—"

He put his hands on the top of the stone and lifted. As he had half expected, it separated at the horizontal groove. The top of the stone was the lid of a box. Inside lay a plastic container.

"Some kind of plastic we don't make any more," muttered Sam.

"Aren't you going to open it?" asked Mark eagerly. "Maybe it tells about the grave and the dog's name."

The plastic came open at a slight tug. Inside were several strong sheets of paper. Sam stared at them and said, "It's writing, sure enough. But in some language I don't understand."

"We can put it in our mechanical translator," said Mark. "That can tell us what it means."

"That's what we'll do."

"Aren't we going to take the dog with us, Pop?"

"No, we'll leave him here. He'll come to in a little while."

Walking back to their ship, Mark continued to show an excitement that was unusual for him. "You know what?" he said. "I'll bet we're going to learn what the dog's name is."

"I doubt if whoever wrote this thing would bother about a trifle like that."

"But that's important. You'll see, Pop, you'll see!"

At the ship, Sam inserted the sheets into the reader section of his translator and started the motor. The selector swung into action.

"Before it can translate, it has to decide what language this is," he explained.

"Will that take long?"

"A few minutes if we're lucky, a couple of hours if we're not. After that, I think the translation itself shouldn't take more than a few minutes. While we're waiting, we might as well eat."

"I'm not hungry," said Mark.

"You'd better eat anyway."

"Just a little bit, maybe. You know what I think, Pop? When I call the dog by his name, he'll know I'm his friend and he'll come to me. Then he'll really be my pet."

"Don't count too much on it," said Sam. And thought once more how lonely his son must be, to center so much hope in a half-wild beast.

A light glowed suddenly in the translator. The selector had found the proper language. Now it began to translate.

Twenty minutes later, its work had been completed. As Sam silently began to read, Mark bumped against him, knocking the translation from his hand. Sam's first reaction was anger at the boy's clumsiness. Then he became aware of the hope and the fear that lay behind Mark's excitement, and bit back the angry words which had almost reached his lips.

"Easy, Mark, easy," he said. He picked up the translation again and sat down. "You can read it over my shoulder, if you want to."

"I just want to find out the dog's name."

"The important thing is his master's name. Julian Hagstrom, it says. And he was on a spaceship with his brother, Raoul."

Mark's eyes had skipped ahead. "Look, Pop, here's the dog's name—Arkem! I never heard of a dog having a name like that! What does it mean?"

"I wouldn't know," muttered Sam absently, still