Beast of Prey

The little party came through the air lock bearing a limp figure on an improvised litter.

"Who was it this time?" Fenner asked.

Gorsline pulled off the transparent hood that covered his head and face, and unzipped his suit. He dug his fingers wearily into his eyes.

"Bodkin," he said. "Same as the others." He turned back to the group. "Get him right to the infirmary. Not that it'll do much good," he added, in an undertone, to Fenner.

Fenner sighed, glancing at Bodkin on the litter. Behind the plastic protection of his mask the man's face was a dark purple; his chest rose and fell spasmodically and there was a faint line of foam on his lips.

Gorsline slipped off his suit, and put it over his arm. Then he and Fenner walked together up the ramp to the Common Room.

"I need a drink," he said. "And a smoke. It's awful not being able to smoke out there."

"You should cultivate Aristotelian moderation," Fenner said, with a grin. "It is far wiser in a Planet Biological Survey Station."

"Moderation didn't do poor Bodkin any good." Gorsline threw his suit into a corner and touched the stud on the dispenser. A lighted cigarette dropped into the trough. "Make me a drink, will you, Luke?" he asked, dropping into a reclining chair.

Hagen, the chief of the Station, came bouncing through the iris, walking as usual as if he had springs under his heels. He was a little plump man with a goatee, which he was tugging in a sort of ecstasy of exasperation.

"Hello!" he cried. "Ha, Fenner. Listen, Gorsline, I've just seen Bodkin. This is dreadful. Three in one week!"

"I agree," Gorsline said, taking the drink Fenner had made for him. "Let's pack up and go home. Shall we?"

Fenner relaxed on the middle of his spine in an easy-chair, and folded his hands together, peering over them at the chief who sat down and stood up and sat down again. You'd never know that man was a capable organizer, he said to himself. Astonishing how people can betray their own appearances—seldom what they seem. Aloud, he said, "Excuse me, Hagen. I want to ask Gorsline—did you see any animals nearby when it happened?"

Gorsline shook his head. "I remembered what you said, but I didn't notice anything at all. It was just the same as in the other two cases; well, almost the same." He drank and sat upright. "We were in Area B, you know. Bodkin was taking a series of photographs of the pollination of those red flowers by leptorrhinus. Hakim and I were digging up bulbs and collecting the larvae that live at the roots—you know the ones I mean?"