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 straight trail and calcine the mud to brick hardness.

Aa-um shook the jungle. And each time it sounded the myriad of animal and bird noises fell still for a moment.

Hippocrates was about to send another shot ahead when Ole Doc stopped him. An instant later a gray-faced Irishman with wild welcome in his eyes broke through the sawtrees to clasp Ole Doc in emotional arms.

"I'm O'Hara. Thank God I got through. Receiver's been out for six months. Didn't know if I was getting a signal out. Thank God you've come!" And he closed for another embrace but Ole Doc forestalled him by calling attention to the aa-um which had just sounded once more.

"Oh that!" said O'Hara. "That's a catbeast. Big and worry enough when I've got time to worry about them. Oh, for the good old days when all I had to worry about was catbeast getting my cattle and mesohawks my sheep. But now—" And he started off ahead of them at a dead run, beckoning them to hasten after him.

They had two close calls from swooping birds as big as ancient bombers and almost took a header over a tree trunk ten feet through which turned out to be a snake rising from the ooze with big, hungry teeth. But they arrived in a moment at the station all in one piece.

"You've got to understand," panted O'Hara when he found Ole Doc wouldn't run any faster, "that I'm the only man here. I have some Achnoids, of course, but you would not call those octopi company even if they can talk and do manual labor. But I've been here on Gorgon for fifteen years and I never had anything like this happen before. I am supposed to make this planet habitable in case Earth ever wants a colony planted. This is an agricultural and animal husbandry station. I'm supposed to make things easy for any future colonist. But no colonists have come so far and I don't blame them. This Savannah here is the coolest place on the planet and yet it's hot enough. But I haven't got an assistant or anyone and so when this happened—"

"Well, come on, man," said Ole Doc. "What has happened."

"You'll see!" cried O'Hara, getting wild-eyed with excitement and concern once more. "Come along."

They entered a compound which looked like a fortress. It sat squarely in the center of a huge grassy field, the better to have its animal targets in the open when they attacked and the better to graze its livestock. As they passed through the gate, O'Hara carefully closed it behind him.

Ole Doc looked incuriously at the long lines of sheds, at the helio motors above each and the corrals where fat cattle grazed. A greenhouse caught his interest because he saw that an Achnoid, who more closely resembled a blue pinwheel than a man, was weeding valuable medicinal herbs from out of, as Ole OLE MOTHER METHELUSAH