oddly-shaped heads, where the skin ranged in
color from a pinkish an to a definitive brown, depending on the
individual. There was no hair anywhere on their bodies except on the
top and back of their heads. No, wait--there were two long tufts above
each eye. They--

"Do you see what they're _eating_?" Wygor's voice whispered.

Dodeth hadn't. He'd been too busy looking at the things themselves.
But when he did notice, he made a noise like a throttled "_Geep!_"

_Hurkles!_

There were few enough of the animals--only a few small population was
needed to keep the Balance, but they were important. And the swamps
were drying up, and the quiggies were moving in on them, and _now_--

Dodeth made a hasty count. Twenty! By the Universal Motivator, these
predators had eaten a hurkle apiece!

Overhead, the Yellow Sun, a distant dot of intensely bright light,
shed its wan glow over the ghastly scene. Dodeth wished the Moon were
out; its much brighter light would have shown him more detail.

But he could see well enough to count the gnawed skeletons of the
little, harmless hurkles. Even the Moon, which wouldn't bring morning
for another fifteen work periods yet, couldn't have made it any
plainer that these beasts were deadly dangerous to the Balance.

"How often do they eat?" he asked in a strained voice.

It was Wygor's robot, Arsam, who answered. "About three times every
work period. They sleep then. Their metabolic cycle seems to be timed
about the same as yours, sir."

"_Gaw!_" said Dodeth. "Sixty hurkles per sleep period! Why, they'll
have the whole hurkle population eaten before long! Wygor! As soon as
we can get shots of all this, we're going back! There's not a moment
to lose! This is the most deadly dangerous thing that has ever
happened to the World!"

"Fry me, yes," Wygor said in an awed voice. "Three hurkles in one
period."

"Allow me to correct you, sir," said the patrol robot. "They do not
eat that many hurkles. They eat other things besides."

"Like what, for instance?" Dodeth asked in a choked voice.

The robot told him, and Dodeth groaned. "Omnivores! That's even worse!
Ardan, pass the word to the scouts to get their pictures and meet at
that tree down there behind us in ten minutes. We've got to get back
to the city!"

* * * * *

Dodeth Pell laid his palms flat on the speaker's bench and looked
around at the assembled Keepers of the Balance, wise and prudence
thin