Shannon, and my skin began to crawl a little. It's the smell, I think; rank and sour and wild. And the sound of them, breathing and rustling in the dark, with the patient hatred walled around them as strong as the cage bars.

Bucky Shannon lurched against me suddenly. I choked back a yell, and then wiped the sweat off my forehead and cursed. The scream came again. A high, ragged, whistling screech like nothing this side of hell, ripping through the musty darkness. Gertrude, on the wailing wall.

It had been quiet. Now every brute in the place let go at the same time. My stomach turned clear over. I called Gertrude every name I could think of, and I couldn't hear myself doing it. Presently a great metallic clash nearly burst my eardrums, and the beasts shut up. Gow had them nicely conditioned to that gong.

But they didn't quiet down. Not really. They were uneasy. You can feel them inside you when they're uneasy. I think that's why I'm scared of them. They make me feel like I'm not human as I thought—like I wanted to put my back-hair up and snarl. Yeah. They were uneasy that night, all of a sudden....

Gow glared at us as we came up into the lantern light. "She's gettin' worse," he said. "She's lonesome."

"That's tough," said Bucky Shannon. His grey-green eyes looked like an owl's. He swayed slightly. "That's sure tough." He sniffled.

I looked at Gertrude. Her cage is the biggest and strongest in the tank and even so she looked as though she could break it open just taking a deep breath. I don't know if you've ever seen a cansin. There's only two of them on the Triangle. If you haven't, nothing I can say will make much difference.

They're what the brain gang calls an "end of evolution." Seems old Dame Nature had an idea that didn't jell. The cansins were pretty successful for a while, it seems, but something gummed up the works and now there's only a few left, way in the deep-swamp country, where even the Venusians hardly ever go. Living fossils.

I wouldn't know, of course, but Gertrude looks to me like she got stuck some place between a dinosaur and a grizzly bear, with maybe a little bird blood thrown in. Anyway, she's big.

I couldn't help feeling sorry for her. She was crouched in the cage with her hands—yeah, hands—hanging over her knees and her snaky head sunk into her shoulders, looking out. Just looking. Not at anything. Her 

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