"Well,” Tibbett explained, “now it seems he's writing a tell-all book about it. Tragedy on Ice."

"Sounds like something starring Peggy Fleming,” Julie said under her breath. Tibbett guffawed immoderately, then turned it into a discreet cough.

"Who are the others?” Gideon asked. “Why would he need an entourage?” Anything was better than Heibler clamps and lateral load-bearing stress.

Tibbett peered at them again. “The gray-haired woman is Dr. Anna Henckel. She was Tremaine's assistant on the original survey. And the, ah, portly gentleman next to her is Dr. Walter Judd; he was on it too. The others-well, I don't have their names straight, but I understand they're relatives of the three people who were killed. Tremaine is using them all as resources, I gather."

"M. Audley Tremaine,” Gideon mused after a moment. “I'd sure like to meet him."

Julie stared at him. “Are you serious? The only time I remember you watching ‘Voyages’ was when it covered human evolution. You ranted and fidgeted through the whole thing. You were yelling at the television set. You called him a pompous charlatan, as I recall."

Tibbett blinked and eyed Gideon with transparent respect.

"That's because the man got everything so completely screwed up,” Gideon said. “In one hour he single-handedly managed to set popular understanding of evolution back ten years. Remember how he ‘traveled back in time’ and talked to those ‘Neanderthalers'? Those actors with fur pasted on them, grunting and squatting and hopping- hopping, for God's sake-all over the place, like big, hairy fleas?"

"I remember,” Julie said. “You made your point very clearly at the time. Or at least very loudly. So then why do you want to meet him?"

"Because of the work he did back in the fifties, before my time. Before he was M. Audley Tremaine, for that matter."