screen. It was now devoid of impulse, barren once more. "That means that whatever the thing is, it's big, sir. Damned big, to stay at maximum pulse that long."

"I know very well what it means!" Jerry grated. "The thing's so—"

The tech smiled bleakly. "—incredible, sir?"

Jerry's nod was thoughtful. "The only word for it, Ensign." His inner eye kept repeating for him that impossible green pattern he'd seen. The strong, flat muscles of his shoulders and neck knotted into what could easily become a villainous tension-headache. Jerry realized suddenly that he was badly scared....

"Sir," the tech said suddenly, "I was under the impression that the roborocket scanners couldn't miss a life-pulse on a planet. I mean, making a complete circuit of the planet every ninety minutes, for a period of six months.... It's impossible for them to miss an uncatalogued life-form."

"I know it is," said Jerry Norcriss, pushing blunt fingers through his shock of prematurely white hair. "Save for two precedents, I cannot conceive of any way in which this pulse could have been overlooked."

"Two precedents, sir?" said the tech, intrigued both by the unsuspected fallibility of the scanner and by this unusual loquacity from the zoologist.

Jerry removed his gaze from the screen and regarded the young man standing beside it. He made as if to reply, then thought better of it. Any out-going on his part was an effort. A big effort. And a danger. Only another Space Zoologist would understand the danger of speech, of letting loose, of relaxing for a moment that terrible vigil over one's personal psychic barricades.

"Skip it," he said abruptly. The young ensign's smile tightened to obedience at the words.

"Yes, sir," said the tech, with strained cordiality. "Will that be all, sir?"

"Yes," said Jerry. Then, as the tech started out of the compartment, "No, wait. Tell Ollie Gibbs in the Ward Room to bring up a pot of coffee. Black."

The man nodded, and went out the door, dogging it after him.

Jerry listened to the booted feet clanking on their magnetic soles up the passageway of the spaceship, and sighed.

The situation, in Jerry's experience, was fantastic. Only twice, in the history of Space Zoology, had 

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