The Project Gutenberg EBook of Tabby, by Winston Marks

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Title: Tabby

Author: Winston Marks

Illustrator: Rudolph Palais

Release Date: May 30, 2010 [EBook #32613]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TABBY ***

Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

TABBY

By Winston Marks

Illustrated by Rudolph Palais

[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from IF Worlds of Science
Fiction March 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

[Sidenote: _Tabby was peculiar, of course, but seemed harmless: just a
little green fly that couldn't even protect itself from ordinary
spiders. So the spiders fed, and grew, and fed, and grew...._]

* * * * *

April 18, 1956

Dear Ben: It breaks my heart you didn't sign on for this trip. Your
replacement, who _calls_ himself an ichthyologist, has only one talent
that pertains to fish--he drinks like one. There are nine of us in the
expedition, and every one of us is fed up with this joker, Cleveland,
already. We've only been on the island a week, and he's gone native,
complete with beard, bare feet and bone laziness. He slops around the
lagoon like a beachcomber and hasn't brought in a decent specimen yet.

The island is a bit of paradise, though. Wouldn't be hard to let
yourself relax under the palms all day instead of collecting blisters
and coral gashes out in the bright sun of the atoll. No complaints,
however. We aren't killing ourselves, and our little camp is very
comfortable. The portable lab is working out fine, and the screened
sleeping tent-houses have solved the one big nuisance we've suffered
before: _Insects_. I think an entomologist would find more to keep him
busy here than we will.

Your ankle should be useable by the time our next supply plane from
Hawaii takes off. If you apply again at the Foundation right now I'm
sure Sellers and the othe