as wearing
some kind of ragged cloth about his waist and nothing else. Across his
back, Kirk could see, was a curving scar, an inch wide and ten or twelve
inches long. It was white and very noticeable against the brown of the
man's skin.

Kirk bent down, looking at the scar carefully. It could have been made
during a crash of a rocket, but there were, he noticed, fine whiter
ridges running along the length of the scar as though they had been
made by fine comb-like teeth. A talon, perhaps. Some kind of strange
claw. Kirk straightened quickly.

It went through his head that Harry Loren might not be the only animal
life on this planet. He tightened his hand on his pistol, stepping
backward, his eyes darting.

But he could only pivot slowly, trying to see, to discover, and he was
much too slow when he finally saw it. It was only a flash of yellow and
brown, making a hissing kind of sound. He felt the ripping along his
right arm. The pistol was going out of his hand. And a swirling
blackness got in front of his eyes.

* * * * *

When he awoke he saw Harry Loren first, who was sitting up now, silent,
motionless, with Kirk's pistol resting in his hands.

To the side of Loren and just a little behind rested a peculiar-looking
thing. It was alive because its head, shaped like a cone that had been
attached to its neck, kept swaying gently back and forth. The dark blue
eyes, spaced back from the smallest end of the cone, were rather small
with no lids. The creature's neck was long and thin, a multitude of
shades of yellow and brown like the head, and the rest of the body
widened out like a funnel and this area was covered with yellow
feathers. It had what appeared to be arms and legs, long thin extensions
of dark brown with large bony joints. At the end of each of these, Kirk
could see a flat claw with rows of tiny comb-like teeth.

Loren reached out and ran a hand softly along the creature's long neck.

Kirk tried to think, testing his muscles without moving, and he
remembered then the ripping along his right arm. He looked at the arm
and at the way his jacket had been torn away along with the shirt
beneath it. He could see the comb-like marking of his skin. The cut was
not deep but it bled a little and stung. He tried to move his arm and
found that he could.

Kirk looked back to Loren. Loren stroked his hand along the thin neck of
the creature. Kirk decided to try:

"That's a nice-look