r a rare atmosphere.

As a youngster, I had once opened a chicken egg, when it was ten days
short of hatching. The memory came back now.

"It looks like a growing embryo of some kind," Klein stated.

"Close the lump again, Craig," Miller ordered softly.

The biologist obeyed.

"A highly intelligent race of beings wouldn't encase their developing
young in mud, would they?" Klein almost whispered.

"You're judging by a human esthetic standard," Craig offered.
"Actually, mud can be as sterile as the cleanest surgical gauze."

* * * * *

The discussion was developing unspoken and shadowy ramifications. The
thing in the dusty red lump--whether the young of a dominant species,
or merely a lower animal--had been born, hatched, started in life
probably during the weeks or months of a vast space journey. Nobody
would know anything about its true nature until, and if, it manifested
itself. And we had no idea of what that manifestation might be. The
creature might emerge an infant or an adult. Friendly or malevolent.
Or even deadly.

Blaine shrugged. Something scared and half-savage showed in his face.
"What'll we do with the thing?" he asked. "Keep it safe and see what
happens. Yet it might be best to get rid of it fast--with chloroform,
cyanide or the back of a shovel."

Miller's smile was very gentle. "Could be you're right, Blaine."

I'd never known Miller to pull rank on any of the bunch. Only
deliberate thought would remind us that he was a colonel. But he
wasn't really a military man; he was a scientist whom the Army had
called in to keep a finger on a possibility that they had long known
might be realized. Yes--space travel. And Miller was the right guy for
the job. He had the dream even in the wrinkles around his deep-set
gray eyes.

Blaine wasn't the right guy. He was a fine technician, good at
machinery, radar--anything of the sort. And a nice fellow. Maybe he'd
just blown off steam--uncertainty, tension. I knew that no paper
relating to him would be marked, "Psychologically unsuited for task in
hand." But I knew just as surely that he would be quietly transferred.
In a big thing like this, Miller would surround himself only with men
who saw things his way.

That night we moved everything to our labs on the outskirts of St.
Louis. Every particle of that extraterrestrial wreck had been packed
and crated with utmost care. Klein and Craig went to work to build a
special refug