p of the overcast. "It looks like Tovan Harl
wants to keep this oyster farm a private matter. In a way he's doing us
a favor, but I'd still feel happier if I had one or two of those
oysters."

"Why do you need them?"

"Well, I figured on getting a couple of the Navy's organic detectors and
setting them for oyster protoplasm. You know how sensitive those gadgets
are. There might be a small but significant change in oyster protoplasm
since it has arrived here."

"Well, you don't need to worry," I said. "I put one of your pets in my
pocket before the natives showed up, so you've got what you need." I
pulled the oyster out and handed it to him. It didn't look any the worse
for its recent rough treatment.

Bergdorf grinned. "I knew I could trust you, Chief. You're sneaky!"

I laughed at him.

* * * * *

We arrived back at Alpha without trouble. I shooed Bergdorf back to
Varnel with the one oyster and a promise that I'd back him up in any
requisitions he cared to make. After that I checked up on the BEE
business I had neglected for the past couple of days and, finally, late
that night took one of the Base's floaters and drove slowly down the
trail to Kron's village.

While Earth-style civilization had done much to improve transport and
communication on Niobe, it hadn't--and still hasn't for that
matter--produced a highway that can stand up to the climate. Roads
simply disappear in the bottomless mud. So whatever vehicular transport
exists on Niobe is in the form of floaters, whose big sausage-shaped
tires give enough flotation to stay on top of the ooze, and sufficient
traction to move through the morass that is Niobe's surface. They're
clumsy, slow and hard to steer. But they get you there--which is
something you can't say about other vehicles.

Kron's village had changed somewhat since I first visited it. The
industrial section was new. The serried ranks of low dural buildings
gleamed metallically in the glare of the floater's lights, glistening
with the sheets of water that ran from their roofs and sides. The
power-broadcast station that stood in the center of the village hadn't
been there either. But other than that everything was pretty much the
same as it always had been, an open space in the jungle filled with
stone-walled, thatch-roofed houses squatting gloomily in the endless
rain.

The industry, such as it was, was concentrated solely upon the
production of viscaya concen