Guybrush looked from face to face. Everyone seemed open, attentive, interested. There was an air of excitement in the room.
"We'll start with the known facts," he said. "We know there are twelve portal stones in the Solar System - is that right, Hermit?"
"Fits what I remember," said the Hermit.
"We know we had two," continued Guybrush, of which one is now in the Sun and presumably destroyed. Simon had two, which I think we can safely stop worrying about. That leaves eight we have to track down."
"We have two possibilities here," said Elaine. "Firstly, that the portal stones found their way to pirates who had no idea of their true use. In these cases, the only way to track them down will be through the trader the Hermit used to sell them off in the first place-"
Wally cleared his throat.
"-okay, the only way pending certain avenues of scientific enquiry Wally wants to follow up. The other possibility, which we would rather not consider, and definitely don't want to encourage, is that these pirates have found out the use of the portal stones and are using them for some purpose. And I'm thinking here of Upchuck's return and his attacks on my space stations. He wanted the portal stones."
"He may have," said Mancomb, "but I can assure you we Space Moose have never come within cooee of a portal stone."
"You've never heard any rumors about them, though?" asked Guybrush.
"Oh sure, rumors, stories, we hear them all the time! But nobody takes that sort of thing seriously. They're just space tales, a bit of entertainment to pass the night hours."
"Still, I think these stories are important," said Guybrush. "I'm thinking about the pirate I got the first portal stone from. He was strictly a nobody, small-time guy. But he had a portal stone. I think most of them are still in circulation. And the stories go with the stones. If I could just remember some names..."
Even as he trailed off, Guybrush turned sharply and looked at Elaine. "I just realised," he said, "I never asked where you got yours."
"You know," said Elaine, "I don't even think I remember now. Off some lone trader, I remember that much."
"He only had the two?" asked Guybrush.
"They were all he showed me at the time," said Elaine. "Didn't seem to know much about them, but they caught my eye. It was only after I'd bought them that I started to hear tales about mysterious rocks."
"Okay," said Guybrush. "I think our best course of action is find the traders the Hermit sold his portal stones to and see if they still have a list of buyers. Do you still remember who it was you sold them to?" he asked the Hermit.
The Hermit pointed at his head. "Mind like a black hole."
"They're not just going to hand that information over, though, are they?" said Mancomb.
"Course not," said Guybrush, grinning. "Now, what I suggest we do is..."