The manager's lips trembled. The Council of Science was not an official government agency, but its members were nearly above the government

He said, "I am sorry, sir."

"No apologies are necessary. Now, Mr. Forester, will you answer my first question?"

Forester muttered, "We had the special dinner number three."

"Both of you?"

"That's right."

David said, "Were there no substitutions on either part?" He had studied the menu at his own table. The Cafe Supreme featured extraterrestrial delicacies, but the special dinner number three was one of the more ordinary meals native to Earth: vegetable soup, veal chops, baked potato, peas, ice cream, and coffee.

"Yes, there was a substitution." Forester's brows drew together. "Manning ordered stewed marplums for dessert."

"And you didn't?''

"No."

"And where are the marplums now?" David had eaten them himself. They were plums grown in the vast Martian greenhouses, juicy and pitless, with a faint cinnamon flavor superimposed on their fruit-iness.

Forester said, "He ate them. What do you suppose?"

"How soon before he collapsed?"

"About five minutes, I think. We hadn't even finished our coffee." The man was turning sickly pale. "Were they poisoned?"

David did not answer. He turned to the manager, "What about the marplums?"

"There was nothing wrong with them. Nothing.'' Gaspere seized the curtains of the alcove and shook them in his passion, but did not forget to speak in the softest of whispers. "They were a fresh shipment from Mars, government tested and approved. We have served hundreds of portions in the last three nights alone. Nothing like this has happened till now."