Transcriber’s Note: This etext was produced from Astounding Science Fiction, Volume LXII No. 6, February 1959. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. [100] [100] MISSING LINK BY FRANK HERBERT The Romantics used to say that the eyes were the windows of the Soul. A good Alien Xenologist might not put it quite so poetically ... but he can, if he’s sharp, read a lot in the look of an eye! The Romantics Illustrated by van Dongen [101]“We ought to scrape this planet clean of every living thing on it,” muttered Umbo Stetson, section chief of Investigation & Adjustment. [101] “We ought “W Stetson paced the landing control bridge of his scout cruiser. His footsteps grated on a floor that was the rear wall of the bridge during flight. But now the ship rested on its tail fins—all four hundred glistening red and black meters of it. The open ports of the bridge looked out on the jungle roof of Gienah III some one hundred fifty meters below. A butter yellow sun hung above the horizon, perhaps an hour from setting. “Clean as an egg!” he barked. He paused in his round of the bridge, glared out the starboard port, spat into the fire-blackened circle that the cruiser’s jets had burned from the jungle. The I-A section chief was dark-haired, gangling, with large head and big features. He stood in his customary slouch, a stance not improved by sacklike patched blue fatigues. Although on this present operation he rated the flag of a division admiral, his fatigues carried no insignia. There was a general unkempt, straggling look about him. Lewis Orne, junior I-A field man with a maiden diploma, stood at the opposite port, studying the jungle horizon. Now and then he glanced at the bridge control console, the chronometer above
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