Page:Astounding Science Fiction (1950-01).djvu/97

 after the birth of, the experimental five from the vats, the three, properly tagged, in the lion pens and horse pens, had learned to use a small sling. But the two on the porch had not.

Ole Doc's notebook was getting crammed with facts. And now and then he saw a glimmer of knowledge about them. He had ruled out several things, amongst them the unusual radiations which might be present, but weren't, on Gorgon. Next he had crossed off machinery radiation and fluid activity.

And then, on this afternoon, little Hippocrates saw him squint, stand up and thoughtfully snap a slide into small bits.

"Maybe solution?" said Hippocrates and O'Hara in different ways but almost in the same instant.

Ole Doc didn't hear them. He turned to the racks of paraphernalia and began to drag down several bottles which he began to treat with pharmaceutical ray rods.

"You maybe poison the whole batch?" said Hippocrates hopefully.

Ole Doc didn't pay him any heed. He ordered up several flasks and put his weird stew into them and then he drew a sketch.

"Make a catapult like this," said Ole Doc. "One on every corner of the pens. That's eight. With eight flasks, one for each. Trigger them with a magnet against this remote condenser so that when it is pushed, off they go into the compounds."

"And everybody dies?" said Hippocrates expectantly, thoughtful of the bruises he had had wrestling these "babies".

"Rig them up," said Ole Doc. Because the rest of this is going to take another day or two."

"What's the sudden rush?" said O'Hara.

Ole Doc jerked a thumb at the sky. "They were about a hundred miles lower today."

"They were?" said O'Hara anxiously. "I didn't see them."

"You missed a lot of things," said Ole Doc dryly. And he picked up a bundle of rayrods and began to sort them. He took a look into the yard and saw a chicken contentedly pecking at the dirt.

"Bring me that," he said. "By the way, where's Mookah?"

O'Hara looked around as though expecting the overseer to be right behind him. Then, suddenly, "Say, he hasn't been around for three days. He's supposed to make his report at two o'clock every afternoon and that's an hour ago."

"Uhuh," said Ole Doc.

"Golly, no wonder you guys live so long," said O'Hara. He climbed off the porch and came back with the chicken.

Ole Doc took the bird, pointed a rod at it and the chicken flopped over on its side, dead. Presently it was under a belljar with more rays playing on it. And then before the astonished gaze of O'Hara the OLE MOTHER METHUSELAH