““He began with the complicated salute of the Astral Confederation and got down to business. ‘Brother Kazam,’ he said, ‘I wish to show you an ancient sacred book I have just discovered.’ I laughed, of course. By that time I’d already discovered seven ancient books by myself, all ready-translated into the language of the country I would be working at the time. The ‘Isba Kazhlunk’ was the most successful; that’s the one I found preserved in the hide of a mammoth in a Siberian glacier.””