World Of Ptavvs   ::   Нивен Ларри

"Several hundred miles east of the shore, we found other forms of native-"

Mayor Herkimer was cut off in mideentence. The slender brunette's voice came from a blank screen: "Mr. Garner, there is another section of the report listed under 'bandersnatchi. Do you want it?"

"Yes, but just a minute." Garner turned to face Kzanol/Greenberg. "Greenberg, were those whitefoods?"

"Yes."

"Are they telepathic?"

"No. And I've never heard of them avoiding a meat packer's ship. They just go on eating until they're dead."

"Okay, miss, we're ready."

Again there was the square, bearded face of the mayor. "We returned to Sirius Mater five Jinx days after our departure. We found that Frumious bandersnatch had preceded us. A single specimen. It must have traveled three thousand miles without yeast, and without any other food source that it could use, just to visit our settlement. To do this it must have gorged itself for months, maybe years, in order to build up enough fat for the trip.

"The colonists let it alone, which was goddam sensible of them, and the bandersnatch didn't come too close. By this time its skin, or its cell wall, was light blue, possibly for protection from sunlight. It went straight to Northwest Cultivation Area, spent two hours running tracks across it in what Vicemayor Tays claims was the damnedest dance he ever saw, then moved off toward the ocean.

"Since we. had both copters, we were the first to see the tracks from above. These are films of the tracks. I am convinced that this is a form of writing. Doheny says it can't be. He believes that a bandersnatch could have no use for intelligence, hence would not develop it. I have to admit the sonofabitch has a good argument. The bandersnatch makes a beached dolphin look like a miracle of dexterity. Would you please analyze this and let us know whether we share this world with an intelligent species?"

"The machines couldn't make anything out of this," Garner put in. "Concepts were too alien, maybe."

From the phone screen came kaleidoscopic color static, then a fuzzy picture. Curved lines, like snail tracks, on brown earth. The earth was piowed in mathematically straight furrows, but the lines were broader and deeper. Hillocks and tree stumps distorted them. A helicopter had landed among the wavy tracks; it looked like a fly on a printed page.

Kzanol/Greenberg choked, gurgled, and said, "'Leave our planet at once or be obliterated, in accordance with the treaty of- I can't read the rest. But it's tnuctip science language. Could I have some water?"

"Sure," Masney said kindly. He jerked a thumb at the cooler. After a moment Kzanol/Greenberg got up and poured his own water.