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The family had had enough breakfast to leave them neutral on the subject of land-prawns, and they were given another of the new toys, a big colored ball. They rolled it around in the grass for a while, decided to save it for their evening romp and took it into the house. Then they began playing aimlessly among some junk in the shed outside the workshop.
It was too point-heavy when finished, so he welded a knob on the other end to balance it. Little Fuzzy knew what that was for right away; running outside, he dug a couple of practice holes with it, and then began casting about in the grass for land-prawns. Jack followed him with the camera and got movies of a couple of prawn killings, accomplished with smooth, by-the-numbers precision.
He put the wooden and horn and bone and stone artifacts away in the desk drawer. Start of the Holloway Collection of Zarathustran Fuzzy Weapons and Implements. Maybe he'd will it to the Federation Institute of Xeno-Sciences. Of course, the family had to try out the new chopper-diggers on land-prawns, and he followed them around with the movie camera.
Then he saw what had made the noise a hard-shelled thing a foot in length, with twelve legs, long antennae and two pairs of clawed mandibles. He stopped and picked up a shard of flint, throwing it with an oath. Another damned infernal land-prawn. He detested land-prawns. They were horrible things, which, of course, wasn't their fault. More to the point, they were destructive.
He'd heard that land-prawns had no natural enemies; he questioned that. Something killed them. He'd seen crushed prawn shells, some of them close to his camp. Maybe stamped on by something with hoofs, and then picked clean by insects. He'd ask Ben Rainsford; Ben ought to know. Half an hour later, the scanner gave him another interruption pattern. He laid it aside and took up the small vibrohammer.
"Well, Jack, it isn't so much that nobody's seen them. Nobody's seen any trace of them. There are land-prawns all around, but nobody's found a cracked shell. And six active, playful, inquisitive Fuzzies ought to be getting into things. They ought to be raiding food markets, and fruit stands, getting into places and ransacking. But there hasn't been a thing.
Little Fuzzy in particular was excited about that; if he didn't recognize himself, he recognized the chisel. Then there were pictures of Little Fuzzy killing and eating land-prawns, Little Fuzzy taking the nut off the bolt and putting it on again, and pictures of the others, after they had come in, hunting and at play. Finally, there was the film of the adoption of Goldilocks and Cinderella.
Was a time, not so long ago, when he took his abilities for granted. Now he was getting old enough to have to verify them. He thumbed on the safety and holstered the pistol, then picked up the glove and put it on again. Never saw so blasted many land-prawns as this summer. They'd been bad last year, but nothing like this.
Species, Holloway's Fuzzy Fuzzy fuzzy holloway. How'll that be?" That would be all right, he supposed. At least, they didn't try to Latinize things in extraterrestrial zoology any more. "I suppose our bumper crop of land-prawns is what brought them into this section?" "Yes, of course. George was telling me you thought they'd come down from the north; about the only place they could have come from.
There was another harpy circling around the camp when he got back; he chased it with the manipulator and shot it down with his pistol. Harpies probably found Fuzzies as tasty as Fuzzies found land-prawns. The family were all sitting under the gunrack when he entered the living room. The next day he cracked flint, and found three more stones.
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