Page:Amazing Stories Volume 17 Number 06.djvu/102

102 Ubruff wouldn't have let them go. But evidently that scientist considered them a bad bet. Big brains, no significance.

Professor Haycox had likewise failed to make much of his specimen. Kirk knew that he had a report half prepared that dealt with the areas of the monster's brain, making comparisons to the human brain. There was a little novel interest in the discovery that the beast's brain areas of his motor activity were merged with those of speech—or so it would seem if the comparison to man's brain was a fair one.

But neither Haycox nor Ubruff had any theories as to the origin or purpose of these monsters on this planet.

At the next laboratory Kirk found he was still on Lester Allison's trail. Here the story was the same. This fountain of science had also acquired a few of the captured beasts other than those bought at Ubruff's. But here the conviction was strong that astronomy, and astronomy only, deserved the attention of scientists during these times. It was not a moment to be expanding in other directions.

"We sold the whole lot of our flying starfish to the Ohio Zoo—yes, I think that's where your friend Allison went, I don't know whether he was interested in the monsters or their caretakers. You see we acquired some workers from the Ubruff Laboratories—men who claimed to be expert at handling these beasts."

Kirk extended his thanks for this information and betook himself to the Ohio Zoo.

Before the storms the Ohio Zoo had been the country's finest. Its pens were large enough to give all animals free range. Lofty structures as high as skyscrapers had housed the eagles and condors and other bird life.

Part of these pens were being reconstructed following the devastation. And Kirk could see from a distance, as he taxied toward the place, that the live six-armed starfish were here, imprisoned in a half mile of pens over the hilltop.

Kirk walked around this structure. Through the lofty grill of bright steel bars he could get a clear view of that nearest beast hovering high in the air. It might have been a gigantic spider suspended from an invisible web. But no, it was supporting itself by stationary flying. The gray finlike flaps along each of its six outstretched arms were barely in motion.

"What a strange creature!"

"Patient old brutes, aren't they?" said a familiar voice at Kirk's elbow.

"Can this be Curator Allison?" Kirk asked, extending his hand to the veteran space man. "So you have become a collector of fifty-ton spiders."

"They are not mine, sorry to say. But they are as interesting as a herd of elephants. I have decided, Kirk, that if I get ready to take a vacation I will buy a cot and camp right here where I can look up at them."

"Strange ambition," Kirk commented, "but I suppose you are turning biologist. I know of one perfessor who gave his life to the study of snails."

"They are all of fifty yards long," said Allison, "from the point of their longest arm to their shortest."

"I supposed you crawled up there and measured them."

"I measured the shortest," said Allison. "They run pretty even, don't they? But you would be surprised. They have their individual differences. Now, you take those three over in the far corner. They are not only smarter, but they are active. Maybe some of these others are sick."

IRK studied Allison's expression curiously. The more Allison