The Asses of Balaam Page 4

steady traveling did very little to sweetenDodeth Pell's temper. The armored car was uncomfortable, and thesilence within it was even more uncomfortable. He did not at all feellike making small talk with Wygor, and he had nothing as yet to say toArdan or the patrol robots who were rolling along with the armoredcar.

  One thing he had to admit: Wygor certainly didn't act like a man whowas being carried to his own doom--which he certainly was if this washoax. Wygor would lose all position and be reduced to living off hiscivil insurance. He would be pitied by all and respected by none.

  But he didn't look as though that worried him at all.

  Dodeth contented himself with looking at the scenery. The car was notyet into the forest country; this was all rolling grassland. Off toone side, a small herd of grazing grancos lifted their graceful headsto watch the passage of the expedition, then lowered them again tofeed. A fanged zitibanth, disturbed in the act of stalking thegrancos, stiffened all his legs and froze for a moment, lookingbalefully at the car and the robots, then went on about his business.

  When they came to the forest, the going became somewhat harder.Centuries ago, those who had tried to build cities on the surface hadalso built paved strips to make travel by car easier and smoother, andDodeth almost wished there were one leading to the target area.

  Fry it, he _hated_ traveling! Especially in a lurching armored car. Hewished he were bored enough or tired enough to go to sleep.

  At last--at _long_ last--Wygor ordered the car to stop. "We're withintwo miles of the clearing, sir," he told Dodeth.

  "All right," Dodeth said morosely. "We'll go the rest of the way onfoot. I don't want to startle them at this stage of the game, so keepit quiet and stay hidden. Tell the patrol robots to spread out, andtell them I want all the movie shots we can get. I want all theKeepers to see these things in action. Got that? Then let's getmoving."

  They crept forward through the forest, Dodeth and Ardan taking theright, while Wygor and his own robot, Arsam, stayed a few yards awayto the left. They were all expert woodsmen--Dodeth and Wygor bytraining and experience, and the robots by indoctrination.

  Even so, Dodeth never felt completely comfortable above ground, withnothing over his head but the clouded sky.

  The team had purposely chosen to approach from a small rise, wherethey could look down on the clearing without being seen. And when theyreached the incline that led up to the ridge, one of the armed patrolrobots who had been in the lead took a look over the ridge and thenscuttled back to Dodeth. "They're there, sir."

  "What are they doing?" Dodeth asked, scarcely daring to believe.

  "Feeding, I believe, sir. They aren't cutting down any trees now;they're just sitting on one of the logs, feeding themselves with theirhandling limbs."

  "How many are there?"

  "Twenty, sir."

  "I'll take a look." He scrambled up the ridge and peeked over.

  And there they were, less than a quarter of a mile away.

  Dazedly, Dodeth took a pair of field glasses from Ardan and focusedthem on the group.

  Oh, they were real, all right. No doubt of that. None whatever.Mechanically, he counted them. Twenty. Most of them were feeding, butfour of them seemed to be standing a little apart from the others,watching the forest, acting as lookouts.

  _Typical herd action_, Dodeth thought.

  He wished Yerdeth were here; he'd show that fool what good histen-to-the-billionth odds were.

  And yet, in another way, Dodeth had the feeling that his parabrotherwas right. How could the life of the World have suddenly evolved suchcreatures? For they looked even more impossible when seen in theflesh.

  * * * * *

  Their locomotive limbs ended in lumpy protuberances that showed nosign of toes, and they were covered all over with a dull gray hide,except for the hands at the ends of their handling limbs and the necksand the faces of their oddly-shaped heads, where the skin ranged incolor from a pinkish an to a definitive brown, depending on theindividual. There was no hair anywhere on their bodies except on thetop and back of their heads. No, wait--there were two long tufts aboveeach eye. They--

  "Do you see what they're _eating_?" Wygor's voice whispered.

  Dodeth hadn't. He'd been too busy looking at the things themselves.But when he did notice, he made a noise like a throttled "_Geep!_"

  _Hurkles!_

  There were few enough of the animals--only a few small population wasneeded to keep the Balance, but they were important. And the swampswere drying up, and the quiggies were moving in on them, and _now_--

  Dodeth made a hasty count. Twenty! By the Universal Motivator, thesepredators had eaten a hurkle apiece!

  Overhead, the Yellow Sun, a distant dot of intensely bright light,shed its wan glow over the ghastly scene. Dodeth wished the Moon wereout; its much brighter light would have shown him more detail.

  But he could see well enough to count the gnawed skeletons of thelittle, harmless hurkles. Even the Moon, which wouldn't bring morningfor another fifteen work periods yet, couldn't have made it anyplainer that these beasts were deadly dangerous to the Balance.

  "How often do they eat?" he asked in a strained voice.

  It was Wygor's robot, Arsam, who answered. "About three times everywork period. They sleep then. Their metabolic cycle seems to be timedabout the same as yours, sir."

  "_Gaw!_" said Dodeth. "Sixty hurkles per sleep period! Why, they'llhave the whole hurkle population eaten before long! Wygor! As soon aswe can get shots of all this, we're going back! There's not a momentto lose! This is the most deadly dangerous thing that has everhappened to the World!"

  "Fry me, yes," Wygor said in an awed voice. "Three hurkles in oneperiod."

  "Allow me to correct you, sir," said the patrol robot. "They do noteat that many hurkles. They eat other things besides."

  "Like what, for instance?" Dodeth asked in a choked voice.

  The robot told him, and Dodeth groaned. "Omnivores! That's even worse!Ardan, pass the word to the scouts to get their pictures and meet atthat tree down there behind us in ten minutes. We've got to get backto the city!"

  * * * * *

  Dodeth Pell laid his palms flat on the speaker's bench and lookedaround at the assembled Keepers of the Balance, wise and prudencethinkers, who had spent lifetimes in ecological service and had showntheir capabilities many times over.

  "And that's the situation, sirs," he said, after a significant pause."The moving and still bathygraphs, the data sheets, and the samplingsof the area all tell the same story. I do not feel that I, alone, canmake the decision. Emotionally, I must admit, I am tempted to destroyall twenty of the monsters. Intellectually, I realize that we shouldattempt to capture at least one family group--if we can discover whatconstitutes a family group in this species. Unfortunately, we cannottell the sexes apart by visual inspection; the sex organs themselvesmust be hidden in the folds of that gray hide. And this is evidentlynot their breeding season, for we have seen no sign of sexualactivity.

  "We have very little time, sirs, it seems to me. The damage they havealready done will take years to repair, and the danger of upsettingthe Balance irreparably grows exponentially greater with every passingwork period.

  "Sirs, I ask your advice and your decision."

  There was a murmur of approval for his presentation as he came downfrom the speakers bench. Then the Keepers went into their respectivecommittee meetings so discuss the various problems of detail that hadarisen out of the one great problem.

  Dodeth went into an anteroom and tried to relax and get a littlesleep--though he doubted he'd get any. His nerves were too much onedge.

  Ardan woke him gently. "Your breakfast, sir."

  Dodeth blinked and jerked his head up. "Oh. Uhum. Ardan! Have theKeepers reached any decision yet?"

  "No, sir; not yet. The data are still coming in."

  It was three more work periods before the Keepers called Dodeth Pellbefore them again. Dodeth could almost rea
d the decision on theirfaces--there was both sadness and determination there.

  "It was an uncomfortable decision, Dodeth Pell," said the EldestKeeper without preliminary, "but a necessary one. We can find no placein the Ecological Balance for this species. We have already ordered apatrol column of two hundred fully-armed pesticide robots to destroythe animals. Two are to be captured alive, if possible, but, if not,the bodies will be brought to the biological laboratories for study.Within a few hours, the species will be nearly or completely extinct.

  "By the way, you may tell your assistant, Wygor, that the animal willgo down in the files as _wygorex_. A unique distinction for him, inmany ways, but not, I fear, a happy one."

  Dodeth nodded silently. Now that the decision had been made, he feltrather bad about