the dissection of the bandersnatch. Evidently the two cops at the door had decided not to look; but Masney and Garner watched in keen interest. Autopsies were nothing new to them. The beast was turned on its side to expose the belly foot, and its jaws were opened with a pulley. Slides were shown of tissue sections. There was a circulatory system, with six hearts weighing eleven pounds apiece; there were strange organs in the left side, which only Kzanol/Greenberg recognized as budding apparatus. He watched with manic concentration as the brain case was opened to show the long, narrow brain, gray and deeply convoluted, in its canoe of a skull. The form was familiar in detail, though he'd never seen one raw. Then it was over, and Mayor Herkimer was back.
"The ocean is a uniform foot thick in some unknown breed of yeast. Herds of bandersnatchi move along the shoreline, feeding continuously. The shore is no goddam tourist trap. It's always dark, the waves are smothered by the yeast and the gravity, and the banderanatchi wander along the shore like the lost souls of worn-away mountains. We'd have liked to leave right then, but Doheny couldn't find the sex organs, and he wanted to make a few more dissections.
"So we sent out the copters to find another specimen. But no bandersnatch ever came close enough to be shot from a copter. The banderanatchi had been curious and unafraid. Now they ran whenever a copter got close. All of them. They couldn't possibly have all known about us, unless they were either telepathic or had a language.
"Yet at least one goddam bandersnatch was always within sight of each copter. They seemed to know the range of our guns.
"On the third day of the hunt Doheny got impatient. He assumed that It was the copters that the bandersnatchi were afraid of, and he landed his goddam copter and went hunting on foot. The moment he was out of shooting range of the copter, a bandersnatch charged in and flattened it like a goddam freight truck running down a pedestrian. Doheny had to walk back.
"Several hundred miles east of the shore, we found other forms of native--"
Mayor Herkimer was cut off in mideentence. The slender brunette's voice came from a blank screen: "Mr. Garner, there is another section of the report listed under 'bandersnatchi.' Do you want it?"
"Yes, but just a minute." Garner turned to face Kzanol/Greenberg. "Greenberg, were those whitefoods?"
"Yes."
"Are they telepathic?"
"No. And I've never heard of them avoiding a meat packer's ship. They just go on eating until they're dead."
"Okay, miss, we're ready."
Again there was the square, bearded face of the mayor. "We returned to Sirius Mater five Jinx days after our departure. We found that *Frumious bandersnatch* had preceded us. A single specimen. It must have traveled three thousand miles without yeast, and without any other food source that it could use, just to visit our settlement. To do this it must have gorged itself for months, maybe years, in order to build up enough fat for the trip.
"The colonists let it alone, which was goddam sensible of them, and the bandersnatch didn't come too close. By this time its skin, or its cell wall, was light blue, possibly for protection from sunlight. It went straight to Northwest Cultivation Area, spent two hours running tracks across it in what Vicemayor Tays claims was the damnedest dance he ever saw, then moved off toward the ocean.
"Since we. had both copters, we were the first to see the tracks from above. These are films of the tracks. I am convinced that this is a form of writing. Doheny says it can't be. He believes that a bandersnatch could have no use for intelligence, hence would not develop it. I have to admit the sonofabitch has a good argument. The bandersnatch makes a beached dolphin look like a miracle of dexterity. Would you please analyze this and let us know whether we share this world with an intelligent species?"
"The machines couldn't make anything out of this," Garner put
"The ocean is a uniform foot thick in some unknown breed of yeast. Herds of bandersnatchi move along the shoreline, feeding continuously. The shore is no goddam tourist trap. It's always dark, the waves are smothered by the yeast and the gravity, and the banderanatchi wander along the shore like the lost souls of worn-away mountains. We'd have liked to leave right then, but Doheny couldn't find the sex organs, and he wanted to make a few more dissections.
"So we sent out the copters to find another specimen. But no bandersnatch ever came close enough to be shot from a copter. The banderanatchi had been curious and unafraid. Now they ran whenever a copter got close. All of them. They couldn't possibly have all known about us, unless they were either telepathic or had a language.
"Yet at least one goddam bandersnatch was always within sight of each copter. They seemed to know the range of our guns.
"On the third day of the hunt Doheny got impatient. He assumed that It was the copters that the bandersnatchi were afraid of, and he landed his goddam copter and went hunting on foot. The moment he was out of shooting range of the copter, a bandersnatch charged in and flattened it like a goddam freight truck running down a pedestrian. Doheny had to walk back.
"Several hundred miles east of the shore, we found other forms of native--"
Mayor Herkimer was cut off in mideentence. The slender brunette's voice came from a blank screen: "Mr. Garner, there is another section of the report listed under 'bandersnatchi.' Do you want it?"
"Yes, but just a minute." Garner turned to face Kzanol/Greenberg. "Greenberg, were those whitefoods?"
"Yes."
"Are they telepathic?"
"No. And I've never heard of them avoiding a meat packer's ship. They just go on eating until they're dead."
"Okay, miss, we're ready."
Again there was the square, bearded face of the mayor. "We returned to Sirius Mater five Jinx days after our departure. We found that *Frumious bandersnatch* had preceded us. A single specimen. It must have traveled three thousand miles without yeast, and without any other food source that it could use, just to visit our settlement. To do this it must have gorged itself for months, maybe years, in order to build up enough fat for the trip.
"The colonists let it alone, which was goddam sensible of them, and the bandersnatch didn't come too close. By this time its skin, or its cell wall, was light blue, possibly for protection from sunlight. It went straight to Northwest Cultivation Area, spent two hours running tracks across it in what Vicemayor Tays claims was the damnedest dance he ever saw, then moved off toward the ocean.
"Since we. had both copters, we were the first to see the tracks from above. These are films of the tracks. I am convinced that this is a form of writing. Doheny says it can't be. He believes that a bandersnatch could have no use for intelligence, hence would not develop it. I have to admit the sonofabitch has a good argument. The bandersnatch makes a beached dolphin look like a miracle of dexterity. Would you please analyze this and let us know whether we share this world with an intelligent species?"
"The machines couldn't make anything out of this," Garner put
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