Transcriber’s Note: This etext was produced from Astounding ScienceFiction, Volume LXII No. 6, February 1959. Extensive research did notuncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
MISSING LINK
The Romantics used to saythat the eyes were the windowsof the Soul. A good Alien Xenologistmight not put it quiteso poetically ... but he can, ifhe’s sharp, read a lot in thelook of an eye!
Illustrated by van Dongen
[101]e ought to scrapethis planet clean ofevery living thing onit,” muttered UmboStetson, section chiefof Investigation & Adjustment.
Stetson paced the landing controlbridge of his scout cruiser. His footstepsgrated on a floor that was therear wall of the bridge during flight.But now the ship rested on its tailfins—all four hundred glistening redand black meters of it. The openports of the bridge looked out onthe jungle roof of Gienah III someone hundred fifty meters below. Abutter yellow sun hung above thehorizon, perhaps an hour from setting.
“Clean as an egg!” he barked. Hepaused in his round of the bridge,glared out the starboard port, spatinto the fire-blackened circle that thecruiser’s jets had burned from thejungle.
The I-A section chief was dark-haired,gangling, with large headand big features. He stood in hiscustomary slouch, a stance not improvedby sacklike patched blue fatigues.Although on this present operationhe rated the flag of a divisionadmiral, his fatigues carried noinsignia. There was a general unkempt,straggling look about him.
Lewis Orne, junior I-A field manwith a maiden diploma, stood at theopposite port, studying the junglehorizon. Now and then he glancedat the bridge control console, thechronometer above it, the big translitemap of their position tilted from[102]the opposite bulkhead. A heavyplanet native, he felt vaguely uneasyon this Gienah III with its gravityof only seven-eighths Terran Standard.The surgical scars on his neckwhere the micro-communicationsequipment had been inserted itchedmaddeningly. He scratched.
“Hah!” said Stetson. “Politicians!”
A thin black insect with shell-likewings flew in Orne’s port, settledin his close-cropped red hair.Orne pulled the insect gently fromhis hair, released it. Again it triedto land in his hair. He ducked. Itflew across the bridge, out the portbeside Stetson.
There was a thick-muscled, no-fatlook to Orne, but something abouthis blocky, off-center features suggesteda clown.
“I’m getting tired of waiting,” hesaid.
“You’re tire