"Have another drink, Billy. At least you got out with your life." Catspaw poured the Trid's crystal goblet full of garglebaster. Billy had quaffed several cups of the fluorescent purple fluid, and was gaining some distance from his sorrow. He was now able to look down on his misfortunes from a pleasantly drowsy cloud that was drifting above them. "But my ship..." he said. " Sheet metal and plastic," said Catspaw. "What about my collection? Some of those instruments were irreplaceable. One of a kind." Here Catspaw felt a great sympathy for the Trid, stemming from the four years he had spent in the Mudcat Ancient Instrument Institute, employed as a restorer of mandolins, banjoes, fiddles, and tiples. He had developed an acoustically acceptable glue while employed there which was still in use.

"Ah, well, Bill. It's said that the instruments are still made in the old way on Tern. Perhaps you can begin again." The Trid supressed a smile. "Why," he said,"is the Enterprise headed there?" Catspaw swirled the liquor in his glass." The official order is to survey the planet, and to gather artifacts of the Terran Colony there. But.... that's not all there is to it." The Trid lit a Venusian Light cigarette and smiled again. "I heard Boukay is aboard." "Yes,"Spaw responded,"the Green Man. He's another part of the puzzle. The scuttlebutt says he issued the directive that made Tern our destination." Spaw leaned confidentially across the table." He thinks the Sacred Song Archive is there." The Trid exhaled a long line of smoke. "I thought that was a myth.""It may well be," said Spaw."We are about to find out." "Do you have any idea," said Billy," what the original versions might be worth? We're talking Pre-Disney here." Spaw smiled and said "I see the gears turning. You want to find the songs and hijack them." The Trid laughed."No, not at all. I'll let them find the Songs, if they exist. Then I'll make my move. Interested?" Spaw gently tapped the Trid's glass with his.