Conclusion: The Lunarians knew about the Ganymeans right from the early days. Yeah-I’ll buy that. . . I suppose it’s not all that surprising, though. I mean, from the pictures that the Ganymeans have shown us of their civilization, there must have been all kinds of evidence left lying around all over the planet. The early Lunanians could hardly have missed it, primitive or not. All they had to do was have eyes.”
“No wonder their writings and legends were full of references to the Giants then,” Hunt said. “That knowledge must have had a terrific influence on how their civilization and thinking developed. Imagine what a difference it might have made if the Sumerians had seen evidence of a long-lost, technically advanced race all around them. They might-hey, what’s this?” Hunt had been scanning idly over the remaining star charts while he was talking. Suddenly he stopped and peered closely at one of them, at the same time pointing to one of the inscriptions with his finger. The inscription did not refer to a constellation of stars this time, but to a single star, standing alone and shown relatively faintly. The inscription, however, stood out in bold Lunarian characters. Its English equivalent read: The Giants’ Star.
“Something wrong?” Maddson asked.
“Not wrong. . . just a bit odd.” Hunt was frowning thoughtfully. “This star-it’s nowhere near that other constellation. It’s in another hemisphere completely, out near Taurus. . . yet it’s got a name like that. I wonder why they gave it a name like that.”
“Why not?” Maddson shrugged. “Why shouldn’t they give it a name like that? It’s as good as any other. Maybe they were kinda running outa names.”
Hunt was still looking perturbed.
“But it’s so faint,” he said slowly. “Don, are the different brightnesses of the stars shown on these charts significant? I mean, did they tend to show the brighter stars larger, same as we do?”
“As a matter of fact, yes they did,” Maddson answered. “But what of it? Does it really. . .”
“Which star is this?” Hunt asked, now evidently intrigued and apparently not hearing.
“Search me.” Maddson spread his hands wide. “I’m no astronomer. Is it so important?”
“I think it is.” Hunt’s voice was curiously soft, and still held a faraway note.
“How come?”
“Look at it this way. That looks like a very faint star to me- magnitude four, five or less at a guess. Something makes me wonder if that star would be visible at all from the Solar System to the naked eye. Now if that were the case, it could only have been discovered after the Lunanians invented telescopes. Right?”
“That figures,” Maddson agreed. “So what?”
“Well, now we get back to the name. You see, that kind of name-The Giants’ Star-is in keeping with all the rest. It’s the kind of name that you’d expect the ancients of the Lunanian race to come up with. But what if the ancients of the Lunanian race never knew about it. . . because they’d never seen it? That means that it had to have been given its name later, after the science of astronomy had been refined to a high level, by the advanced civilization that came later. But why would an advanced civilization give it a name like that?”
A look of growing comprehension spread slowly across Maddson’s face. He looked back at Hunt but was too astounded by the implication to~ say anything. Hunt read the expression and nodded to confirm what Maddson was thinking.
“Exactly. We have to grope around in the dark to find out anything about what kind of evidence of their existence the Clanymeans left behind them. The Lunarian scientists had no such problem because they had the one thing available to them that we don’t have-the planet Minerva, intact, right under their feet, no doubt with enough evidence and clues buried all over it to keep them busy for generations.” He nodded again in response to Maddson’s incredulous stare. “They must have built up a very complete record of what the Ganymeans had done, all right. But all the evidence they used to do it was lost with them.”