Missing Link   By: Frank Herbert (1920-1986)

BY FRANK HERBERT

Transcriber’s Note: This etext was produced from Astounding Science Fiction, Volume LXII No. 6, February 1959. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

[Illustration]

The Romantics used to say that the eyes were the windows of the Soul. A good Alien Xenologist might not put it quite so poetically ... but he can, if he’s sharp, read a lot in the look of an eye!

Illustrated by van Dongen

“We ought to scrape this planet clean of every living thing on it,” muttered Umbo Stetson, section chief of Investigation & Adjustment.

Stetson paced the landing control bridge of his scout cruiser. His footsteps grated on a floor that was the rear wall of the bridge during flight. But now the ship rested on its tail fins—all four hundred glistening red and black meters of it. The open ports of the bridge looked out on the jungle roof of Gienah III some one hundred fifty meters below. A butter yellow sun hung above the horizon, perhaps an hour from setting.

“Clean as an egg!” he barked. He paused in his round of the bridge, glared out the starboard port, spat into the fire blackened circle that the cruiser’s jets had burned from the jungle.

The I A section chief was dark haired, gangling, with large head and big features. He stood in his customary slouch, a stance not improved by sacklike patched blue fatigues. Although on this present operation he rated the flag of a division admiral, his fatigues carried no insignia. There was a general unkempt, straggling look about him.

Lewis Orne, junior I A field man with a maiden diploma, stood at the opposite port, studying the jungle horizon. Now and then he glanced at the bridge control console, the chronometer above it, the big translite map of their position tilted from the opposite bulkhead. A heavy planet native, he felt vaguely uneasy on this Gienah III with its gravity of only seven eighths Terran Standard. The surgical scars on his neck where the micro communications equipment had been inserted itched maddeningly. He scratched.

“Hah!” said Stetson. “Politicians!”

A thin black insect with shell like wings flew in Orne’s port, settled in his close cropped red hair. Orne pulled the insect gently from his hair, released it. Again it tried to land in his hair. He ducked. It flew across the bridge, out the port beside Stetson.

There was a thick muscled, no fat look to Orne, but something about his blocky, off center features suggested a clown.

“I’m getting tired of waiting,” he said.

“ You’re tired! Hah!”

A breeze rippled the tops of the green ocean below them. Here and there, red and purple flowers jutted from the verdure, bending and nodding like an attentive audience.

“Just look at that blasted jungle!” barked Stetson. “Them and their stupid orders!”

A call bell tinkled on the bridge control console. The red light above the speaker grid began blinking. Stetson shot an angry glance at it. “Yeah, Hal?”

“O.K., Stet. Orders just came through. We use Plan C. ComGO says to brief the field man, and jet out of here.”

“Did you ask them about using another field man?”

Orne looked up attentively.

The speaker said: “Yes. They said we have to use Orne because of the records on the Delphinus .”

“Well then, will they give us more time to brief him?”

“Negative. It’s crash priority. ComGO expects to blast the planet anyway.”

Stetson glared at the grid. “Those fat headed, lard bottomed, pig brained ... POLITICIANS!” He took two deep breaths, subsided. “O.K. Tell them we’ll comply.”

“One more thing, Stet.”

“What now?”

“I’ve got a confirmed contact.”

Instantly, Stetson was poised on the balls of his feet, alert. “Where?”

“About ten kilometers out. Section AAB 6.”

“How many?”

“A mob. You want I should count them?”

“No. What’re they doing?”