rain tonight. This dry weather couldn't last forever. He'd been letting
the manipulator stand out overnight lately. He decided to put it in the
hangar. He went and opened the door of the vehicle shed, got back onto the
machine and floated it inside. When he came back to the living hut, he saw
that he had left the door wide open.

"Damn fool!" he rebuked himself. "Place could be crawling with prawns by
now."

He looked quickly around the living room--under the big combination desk
and library table, under the gunrack, under the chairs, back of the
communication screen and the viewscreen, beyond the metal cabinet of the
microfilm library--and saw nothing. Then he hung up his hat, took off his
pistol and laid it on the table, and went back to the bathroom to wash his
hands.

As soon as he put on the light, something inside the shower stall said,
"_Yeeeek!_" in a startled voice.

He turned quickly to see two wide eyes staring up at him out of a ball of
golden fur. Whatever it was, it had a round head and big ears and a
vaguely humanoid face with a little snub nose. It was sitting on its
haunches, and in that position it was about a foot high. It had two tiny
hands with opposing thumbs. He squatted to have a better look at it.

"Hello there, little fellow," he greeted it. "I never saw anything like
you before. What are you anyhow?"

The small creature looked at him seriously and said, "Yeek," in a timid
voice.