bridges--primitive or otherwise. Any stage of
culture would have been observed by the cruiser immediately. The planet
seemed ideally suited to colonization.

Gallifa, the trained biologist, carefully studied the creatures. The
dwarf-like gnomes, as Samuels had dubbed them, might be considered
caricatures of humanity.

They were about four feet high--bipeds, and covered with a soft, pinkish
fur. They walked erect; normally so, Gallifa could tell, because their
upper limbs were too short for knuckling and were not jointed correctly
for moving on all fours. They had five digited limbs, both upper and
lower, just as did all higher life forms ever discovered on any planet.
Their features were without hair and of a fairy story-humanoid type.
With their large, floppy ears, and round-solemn eyes they were very
unusual gnomes indeed.

Gallifa spoke to them quietly, trying a few standard low-order
communication and classification tricks. The visitors--somehow he
couldn't think of them as base animals--made no response. They didn't
quite seem to fit any classification niche. The creatures faintly
puzzled Gallifa. The best he could do was: Low order intelligence and
probably harmless. Cultural development, nil.

As if to prove his rationalizations, the creatures suddenly seemed to
ignore the humans. They walked unconcernedly past the truck and attacked
the vegetation on the edge of the clearing. Every so often one would
overturn a small rock and grub for the exposed insects.

Gallifa observed their broad, dull teeth. They weren't, he decided,
omnivorous.

Samuels interrupted his train of thought. "Do you think they will give
us any trouble?" he asked.

"No," Gallifa affirmed slowly. "Not materially, anyway. But it's going
to be interesting, and a little difficult, to study this species. They
don't seem to be ecologically feasible. Look at them. They are small and
weak. They don't have claws, not even sheathed--and they are definitely
too low in the evolutionary scale to know anything of weapons. Their
feet obviously aren't constructed for climbing, and their limbs are too
short and aren't planned right for running."

He removed his hat and scratched his head. "In short," he finished,
"they are an unprotected species, obviously _unable_ to protect
themselves."

"That's odd enough," Samuels agreed. "But maybe they don't need
protection. Maybe they don't have any natural enemies."

"On a raw planet?" Gallifa retorted. "T