ly there were things about the planet that Biological Survey
had missed.

Marin dropped to his knees and began to look for clues. If insects had
been responsible, there ought to be a few dead ones, crushed, perhaps,
as the colonists rolled over in their sleep. There were no insects,
either live or dead.

He stood up in disappointment and walked slowly through the grove. It
might be the trees. At night they could exude a vapor which was
capable of dissolving the material from which the clothing had been
made. Far-fetched, but not impossible. He crumbled a leaf in his hand
and rubbed it against his sleeve. A pungent smell, but nothing
happened. That didn't disprove the theory, of course.

He looked out through the trees at the blue sun. It was bigger than
Sol, but farther away. At Glade, it was about equal to the Sun on
Earth.

He almost missed the bright eyes that regarded him from the
underbrush. Almost, but didn't--the domain of biology begins at the
edge of the atmosphere; it includes the brush and the small creatures
that live in it.

He swooped down on it. The creature fled squealing. He ran it down in
the grass outside the grove. It collapsed into quaking flesh as he
picked it up. He talked to it gently and the terror subsided.

It nibbled contentedly on his jacket as he carried it back to the
ship.

* * * * *

Executive Hafner stared unhappily into the cage. It was an
undistinguished animal, small and something like an undeveloped
rodent. Its fur was sparse and stringy, unglamorous; it would never be
an item in the fur export trade.

"Can we exterminate it?" asked Hafner. "Locally, that is."

"Hardly. It's ecologically basic."

[Illustration]

The executive looked blank. Dano Marin added the explanation: "You
know how Biological Control works. As soon as a planet has been
discovered that looks suitable, they send out a survey ship loaded
with equipment. The ship flies low over a good part of the planet and
the instruments in the ship record the neural currents of the animals
below. The instruments can distinguish the characteristic neural
patterns of anything that has a brain, including insects.

"Anyway, they have a pretty good idea of the kinds of animals on the
planet and their relative distribution. Naturally, the survey party
takes a few specimens. They have to in order to correlate the pattern
with the actual animal, otherwise the neural pattern would be merel