Big Baby — Key Ideas to Explore

Corps was forcibly reminded that in a universe of planets, there is infinite room for even the unlikely to occur.

The only other oversight had been years later, when a just-settling colony had been half-destroyed by a herd of immense beasts similar to the buffalo of Earth, but viciously carnivorous. There had been no indication, in the six-month scanning period, that such a species even existed on the planet, the third planet of Syrinx Gamma, the sun of a newly discovered system beyond the Coalsack.

The reason was maddeningly simple. The herds were migratory. Their migrations had corresponded in scope around the oceanless planet with the sweep of the scanner-beam in such a way that the roborocket was scanning either where the herd had just been or where it had not yet arrived. Again, the odds were fantastic against the occurrence. Yet, again, it _had_ happened. Other than these two events, though, there had been no further error on the part of scanners for nearly a decade.

Precautions had been taken against recurrence.

Roborockets were now sent to scan a planet only at a time when there would be an overlap of seasonal climes, so that the beam would inspect the surface throughout both the mild and the rigorous weathers, thus obviating a repeat of the brown bear incident. And the sweep of the beam had been extended, so that no animal with migratory movement at speeds less than that of a supersonic plane could have avoided being duly detected and catalogued. That, they thought, should prevent any more such incidents.

And yet, here he was, descending through the black vacuum of space toward an already-colonized planet, the second planet of Sirius, a planet supposedly already scanned, catalogued, and long-since ready for inhabitation. And now, after the colonials had been there for nearly five years, something was starting to wipe them out. Some unsuspected alien thing was present on the planet, a thing that a hastily lofted roborocket had located in a matter of hours, and yet had missed in its original six-month orbital check, before the settlers came.

It was impossible. Incredible. And yet, again, it _had_ happened--_was_ happening--and had to be stopped.

A frantic appeal had been beamed to Earth through sub-space, an appeal for a Space Zoologist to find the alien, learn its weaknesses, and recommend its mode of destruction.

"Some day," Jerry mused, waiting impatiently for Ollie Gibbs with the coffee, "I'll come upon an invincible alien. What recommendation then!" He could just imagine himself telling a second-generation village of hardshell settlers that they'd best just pack up and get out....

Jerry's ruminations were interrupted by the soft tap on the door that meant Ollie had arrived. He grunted an answer, and the ship's mess boy came in, his face rigid in an expression of polite decorum as he set the steaming pot and drab plastic cup down on the swing-out table at Jerry's elbow.

Jerry sensed the man's eyes flickering onto him each time the mess boy felt the zoologist wasn't looking his way. He finally turned and caught the youth in mid-stare.

"What is it, Ollie?" said Jerry, not unkindly. "You'll burst if you don't talk. Go ahead, spit it out."

Ollie flashed a brief grin, a dazzle of white teeth that was all the brighter in his bronze face. "If I'm bursting with anything, sir, it's just plain nosiness."

Jerry glanced from Ollie to the wall clock--spaceship clocks were always set at Eastern Standard Earth Time--and sighed. He was cutting it terribly close this time. Suddenly, he wanted very much to have someone to talk to. It didn't matter, all at once, that he'd be exposing himself to danger by relaxing his mental grip on himself. If the ship were not landed and his job begun within two hours he'd be no worse off speaking than if he'd kept still.

"Sit down, Ollie," he said abruptly.

The mess boy's eyebrows rose at this unheard-of request, but he perched obediently in a chair, almost poised for flight on the edge of the seat. To have a chat with a Space Zoologist was without precedent in Ollie's experience.

Jerry carefully poured himself a cup of coffee, took a sip and settled back comfortably in his chair. "What's on your mind, Ollie?"

"Like I said, sir, just plain nosiness. I--I can't get over you Learners, sir, that's all. I always wonder what gets you into the business. Why you stay in it so long, why you die so quick if you quit the Corps, or--Well, like that, sir."