he dark side. Who could live in an everlasting night?

Or suppose that the magnetic field of the World were too weak to focus
the majority of the Blue Sun's output of electrons and ions on the
poles. How could life have evolved at all?

Balance. And the Ultimate Universal Motivator had put part of the
responsibility into the hands of His only intelligent species. And a
part of that part had been put into the hands of Dodeth Pell as the
head of Predator Control.

Fry it! Something was niggling at the back of Dodeth's mind, and no
amount of philosophizing would shake it. He reached into the drawer of
the business bench and pulled out the duplicate of Wygor's data
booklet. He flipped it open and looked at the bathygraphs again.

* * * * *

There was no single thing about them that he could pinpoint, but the
beasts just didn't _look_ right. Dodeth Pell had seen many monstrous
animals in his life, but none like this.

Most people disliked and were disgusted by a snith because of the
uncanny resemblance the stupid beast had to the appearance of Dodeth's
own race. There could be no question of the genetic linkage between
the two species, but, in spite of the physical similarities, their
actions were controlled almost entirely by instinct instead of reason.
They were like some sort of idiot parody of intelligent beings.

But it was their similarity which made them loathsome. Why should
Dodeth Pell feel a like emotion when he saw the bathygraphs of the
two-legged thing? Certainly there was no similarity.

Wait a minute!

He looked carefully at the three-dimensional pictures again.

Fry it! He couldn't be sure--

After all, he wasn't a geneticist. Checking the files wouldn't be
enough; he wouldn't know how to ask the proper cross-filing questions.

He lolled his tongue out and absently rasped at a slight itch on the
back of his hand while he thought.

If his hunch were correct, then it was time to call in outside help
now, instead of waiting for more information. Still, he needn't
necessarily call in official expert help just yet. If he could just
get a lead--enough to verify or disprove the possibility of his hunch
being correct--that would be enough for a day or two, until Wygor got
more data.

There was always Yerdeth, an older parabrother on his prime-father's
side. Yerdeth had studied genetics--theoretical, not applied--with the
thought of going into Control, and kept on dabbli