The Project Gutenberg EBook of Missing Link, by Frank Patrick Herbert

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: Missing Link

Author: Frank Patrick Herbert

Release Date: October 27, 2007 [EBook #23210]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MISSING LINK ***

Produced by Greg Weeks, Bruce Albrecht, Markus Brenner and
the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
http://www.pgdp.net

MISSING LINK

BY FRANK HERBERT

Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Astounding Science
Fiction, Volume LXII No. 6, February 1959. Extensive research did not
uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was
renewed.

[Illustration]

_The Romantics used to say that the eyes were the windows of the Soul.
A good Alien Xenologist might not put it quite so poetically ... but he
can, if he's sharp, read a lot in the look of an eye!_

Illustrated by van Dongen

"We ought to scrape this planet clean of every living thing on it,"
muttered Umbo Stetson, section chief of Investigation & Adjustment.

Stetson paced the landing control bridge of his scout cruiser. His
footsteps grated on a floor that was the rear wall of the bridge during
flight. But now the ship rested on its tail fins--all four hundred
glistening red and black meters of it. The open ports of the bridge
looked out on the jungle roof of Gienah III some one hundred fifty
meters below. A butter yellow sun hung above the horizon, perhaps an
hour from setting.

"Clean as an egg!" he barked. He paused in his round of the bridge,
glared out the starboard port, spat into the fire-blackened circle that
the cruiser's jets had burned from the jungle.

The I-A section chief was dark-haired, gangling, with large head and big
features. He stood in his customary slouch, a stance not improved by
sacklike patched blue fatigues. Although on this present operation he
rated the flag of a division admiral, his fatigues carried no insignia.
There was a general unkempt, straggling look about him.

Lewis Orne, junior I-A field man with a maiden diploma, stood at the
opposite port, studying the jungle horizon. Now and then he glanced at
the bridge control console,