Hudson lay in his sleeping bag, staring at the sky. It bothered him a lot. There was not one familiar constellation, not one star that he could name with any certainty. This juggling of the stars, he thought, emphasized more than anything else in this ancient land the vast gulf of years which lay between him and the Earth where he had been-or would be-born.
Hunting down the beast, under the best of circumstances, was dangerous. But in this little police operation, the conditions required the use of inadequate means!
A scientist, an unemployed man and a cat lady read an advertisement about a secret society from a magazine. They all answer it for various, but different, reasons and get somewhat different return mailings. It turns out that there really IS a real ancient secret society with scientific secrets, and it is drafting new researchers.
All Earth needed was a good stiff dose of common sense, but its rulers preferred to depend on the highly fallible computers instead. As a consequence, interplanetary diplomatic relations were somewhat strained--until a nimble-witted young man from Mars came up with the answer to the "sixty-four dollar" question.