ould feel them pulling in the tough, rubberized
fabric, like the claws of a climbing kitten. And he would make a kind
of contented chirping that might have had affection in it.

But then there was the time when he bit me. I don't know the reason,
unless it was that I had held onto his ball too long. He got my
finger, through the glove, with his snaggy, chalk-hued mandibles,
while he made a thin hissing noise.

Pretty soon my hand swelled up to twice its size, and I felt sick.
Klein had to relieve me in the cage for a while. The bite turned out
to be mildly venomous. Before that, I'd had a rash on my arms. An
allergy, probably; maybe some substance from those Martian plants had
gotten inside my spacesuit and rubbed onto my skin. Who knows? Perhaps
Earthly flesh can sense alien life, and reddens to fight it off. And
there you have one of the potential disadvantages of contact with
unknown worlds.

* * * * *

That poisoned bite was one thing. But Etl's show of rage was
another--a sign of the mixed nature of all his kind, emerging a bit
from the shadows of enigma. Here revealed was the emotion on which
things like murder are based. These creatures had it, just as we did.
Maybe it's necessary for any kind of thing that can progress upward
from nothing. Still, people did not find it reassuring when they heard
about it on the newscast.

After that, popular opinion insisted that the cage be constantly
surrounded by four manned machine-guns pointing inward. And tanks of
cyanogen were so arranged that the poison gas could be sent gushing
into the cage at any time.

Part of my mind felt these precautions were completely exaggerated.
There is a certain, ever-present segment of any public, whose jittery
imagination is a constant fuse-cap for panic. Such cowardice angered
me.

But the rest of me went along with Miller when he said: "We're in the
dark, Nolan. For all we know, we might be up against very swift
maturity and inherited memory. And we've got to go on testing Etl ...
with toys, psychological apparatus and tools and devices made by his
own people. Suppose he 'remembers' skills from his ancestors, and can
build dangerous new devices, or make old ones work again? If his kind
are bent on being enemies, we'd better find it out as soon as
possible, too, hadn't we? No, I don't truly expect any serious
developments, Nolan. Still--just for insurance--eh?"

* * * *