he ship surged upward.

* * * * *

Hours later, they watched the last of the flares glare below in a
steaming geyser of mud and scum. The ship hovered motionless, its only
sound a busy droning from the engine room where her mass-synthesizer
discharged a deadly cloud of insecticide into the crater.

"There'll be some nasty coughing among the natives for a few days after
this," Gibson said. "But it's better than being food for larvae....
Reorientation will pull them out of that pesthole in a couple of months,
and another decade will see them raising cattle and wheat again outside.
The young adapt fast."

"The young, yes," Stryker agreed uncomfortably. "Personally, I'm getting
too old and fat for this business."

He shuddered, his paunch quaking. Farrell guessed that he was thinking
of what would have happened to them if Gibson had been as susceptible as
they to the overpowering fascination of the moths. A few more chrysalids
to open in the spring, an extra litter of bones to puzzle the next
Reclamations crew....

"That should do it," Gibson said. He shut off the flow of insecticide
and the mass-converter grew silent in the engine room below. "Exit
another Hymenop experiment in bastard synecology."

"I can understand how they might find, or breed, a nocturnal moth with
breeding-season control over human beings," Farrell said. "And how
they'd balance the relationship to a time-cycle that kept the host
species alive, yet never let it reach maturity. But what sort of
principle would give an instinctive species compulsive control over an
intelligent one, Gib? And what did the Bees get out of the arrangement
in the first place?"

Gibson shrugged. "We'll understand the principle when--or if--we learn
how the wasp holds its spider helpless. Until then, we can only guess.
As for identifying the motive that prompted the Hymenops to set up such
a balance, I doubt that we ever will. Could a termite understand why men
build theaters?"

"There's a possible parallel in that," Stryker suggested. "Maybe this
was the Hymenop idea of entertainment. They might have built the bridge
as balconies, where they could see the show."

"It could have been a business venture," Farrell suggested. "Maybe they
raised the moth larvae or pupae for the same reason we raise poultry. A
sort of insectile chicken ranch."

"Or a kennel," Gibson said dryly. "Maybe they bred moths for pets, as we
breed dogs."

Farrel