The Project Gutenberg EBook of Vital Ingredient, by Charles V. De Vet

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Title: Vital Ingredient

Author: Charles V. De Vet

Illustrator: Bob Martin

Release Date: November 17, 2009 [EBook #30491]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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_It is man's most precious possession--no living thing can exist
without it. But when they gave it to Orville, it killed him. For the
answer, read 1/M._

Vital
Ingredient

By Charles V. De Vet

"Now watch," Remm said, indicating the native. Macker had been absent,
exploring the countryside in the immediate vicinity of their landing
place, and had not witnessed the capture of the native, or the tests his
two companions made on it.

Macker followed Remm's gaze to where the biped native sat hunched. The
creature was bent into an ungainly position, its body crooked at
incongruous angles, in such a way as to allow most of its weight to rest
on a packing-box at the base of a middle angle. Its stubby feet, on the
ends of thin, pipelike legs, rested against the floor of the space ship.
Its body was covered, almost entirely, with an artificial skin material
of various colors. Some of the colors hurt Macker's eyes. In the few
places where the flesh showed through the skin was an unhealthy, pallid
white.

Slowly the creature's head swiveled on its short neck until it faced
them.

"Those orifices in the upper portion of its skull are evidently organs
of sight," Remm said. "It sees that we are quite a distance away. It
will probably attempt to escape again."

Slowly--slowly--the native's head rotated away from them in a
half-circle until it faced Toolls, working over his instruments on the
far side of the room. Then it turned its head back until it faced the
door of the ship.

"It is setting itself for flight now," Remm said. "Notice the evidence
of strain on its face."

The creature leaned forward and the appendages on the ends of its upper
limbs clutched the sides of the box as it propelled it