p, he missed the great, mottled tentacle which plucked
him off his torpedo in a flash of movement, leaving the riderless craft
to cruise aimlessly away into the distance.

"Your highness," said the Supervisor Supreme, "we are helpless. We have
never used metal nets, because we have never had to. Our fiber nets
they slash to ribbons. They attack every species of food-fish from the
Ursaa to the Krad. The breeding rate is fantastic, and now my equal who
controls the mines says they are attacking the miners despite all the
protection he can give them. They are not large, but in millions----"

"Cease your outcries," said the First in Council, wearily, "and remove
that animal from my writing desk. I have seen many pictures of it since
they first appeared five cycles ago. It still looks alien and
repulsive."

They stared in silence at the shape that any high-school biology
student of distant Terra could have identified in his sleep.

At length, the First in Council dismissed the Supervisor of Fisheries
and headed thoughtfully for an inner room of his palace. He knew at
last the meaning of the strange metal communicating devices, discovered
and confiscated, after the star ship had departed, six cycles before.
It was a simple machine to operate, and he guessed food could be sent
incredibly quickly to his starving planet. Just as quickly as other
things, he thought grimly. And we have to beg. Hah. Admission to the
great peace-loving Combine, may the crabs devour them.

But he knew that he would send and that they would come.

"I was comparing the two reports, my friend," said Mazechazz, "but I am
not so familiar with your planetary ecology as I should be. When
Mureess applied for admission to the Combine, I requested a copy of
their secret directive from Biology, but I had never seen the older
report until you gave it to me just now. Can you explain the names to
me, if I read them off?"

"Go ahead," said Powers, sipping his sherbet noisily. He seldom
wondered what alcohol would feel like any longer. Most Old Believers
had tried it when young and disliked it.

"I've already looked up the names I didn't know," he said, "so start
the Mureessan list first."

"Great White Shark, or Man-eater," read Mazechazz. "He sounds obvious
and nasty."

"He is," said Powers. He put down his glass. "Remember, as usual, the
birth rate has been at least tripled. An increased metabolism means
increased food consumption, and no shark on