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 he put a chunk of steel into his sling and whipped it at the glass. The bulletproof shield crawled with cracks and a shower of chips went forward from it.

The kid gave his "pants" a hitch, turned on his heel and strode back into the shed. The door dropped. Mookah dropped into the arena and began to call for help to get the catbeast en route to the cookshack.

"I knew he'd shoot at us," said O'Hara. "The shield was for him, not for you, sir."

Ole Doc let out his breath with the realization that he must have been holding it for some time. "Well!"

"Now that's my problem," said O'Hara. "There are eighteen thousand of them and they are all males. Sir, what in the name of all that's holy have I done wrong?"

"Took a job with the United States Department of Agriculture," said Ole Doc.

"First I was very loving," said O'Hara. "There were only two of them in the lion shed and I thought they'd been overlooked somehow by these condemned Achnoids. I didn't know what had happened. I was puzzled but not really upset. Strange things occur out here on these far stations. So I took them into the house as soon as they were "born" and had a female Achnoid feed them with good cow's milk. And they laid and cooed and I figured out life was a fine thing. And then I was gone on a month's trip to the next continent to see how my plant culture was doing there—planted a million square miles in redwoods—and when I came back I couldn't find the Achnoid nurse and the house was in shreds. So they been out here ever since, confound them. For a while I thought they'd eaten the nurse but she finally came whimpering back home after two weeks lying in the bayonet grass. So here they are. They evidently mature quick."

"Evidently," said Ole Doc.

"Maybe they won't be full grown for several years," said O'Hara. "But every day they get worse. That concrete blockhouse you see down there is just in case."

Ole Doc glanced down to where a dozen Achnoids were slaving in the harsh daylight, building what seemed an impregnable fortress. "Prison?" said Ole Doc.

"Refuge!" said O'Hara. "In six months or less this planet won't be safe for Achnoids, catbeasts, scumsnakes, gargantelephants, pluseagles or me!"

Ole Doc looked amusedly back at the Achnoids who were carting away the catbeast's body. "Well, you've got one consolation—"

An Achnoid had come up from another shed labeled "Horses" and was giving O'Hara an excited account of something. O'Hara looked pale and near a swoon.

"I said," said Ole Doc, "that you at least have the consolation that it's one generation only. With no females—"

"That's just it," said O'Hara, 88