Pessimistic Anticipation



This work is copyright of Charles E. Weindorf  (1993) and may not be
posted to other electronic forums or media, or placed in print without
                the written permission of the author.
                                  
                                  
                                  
     "Why don't you starve?" Dr. Leslie Stewart asked the hulking,
armored form behind the bomb-proof glass.  "There's no way I'd let you
eat me!"
     The creature, a frobedozer from Frobe's Planet, was the newest
arrival at the Xenozoology Research Center.  Knowing the curiosity that
the beast was generating at the Xenozoology Center, or Xo for short,
Leslie believed the frobedozer would be the most popular topic at Xo this
year.  And, the frobedozer was all hers!
     "An enigma, to be sure, Leslie," the gaunt figure of Dr. Curry
materialized behind her.  "This is a terrific challenge for us and Xo."
     "OK, so its not all mine," Leslie thought and sighed as she glanced
back at the six-foot hat rack that was Dr. Curry.  For every staff
halloween party, Dr. Dave had been dressed as a skeleton - a costume that
Leslie could never get away with.
     "Did I startle you?" he continued, looking down at her through the
lenses of heavy glasses.
     "When you take a lunch break, you're supposed to eat, Dave," she
pointed to her own body and at the Frobedozer's.  "Neither of us miss a
meal."
     "And that's the mystery," David took a step past her and stood at
the barrier, a mere three feet from the 18 ton hunter.  "It is a paradox
of a predator.  First, it has ponderous weight, normally common in
gigantic herbivores.  Next, its top speed observed on Frobe's Planet was
only four miles per hour.  Fast for a sloth, dead slow for a land
predator.  Then there is the body armor: a heavy arrangement of bony
plates that rivals the strength of our modern tanks.  What predator, that
needed to catch swifter prey, would have such an arrangement of useless
protection?"
     "Add to that the obvious puzzles," Leslie let out a snort of a
laugh.  "It's blind, deaf, mute and has no sense of smell.  You'd think
it would never catch one of those swift pessimists.  Only the sensations
of taste and touch.  It can only feel the rending of its prey and the
taste of its blood."
     She paused before a smile spread to the corners of her wide cheeks. 
"Of course, I've dated worse monsters than this one.  No taste either and
all touch."
     As he looked down at her, one of Curry's eyebrows rose over the
brown rim of his glasses.
     "Your dark humor does raise another interesting question," the man
stroked his short, silver beard with his left hand.  "How can the
frobedozer use its available sense more keenly?"
     "Perhaps it has a sense that we don't know about," Dr. Stewart held
the computer board tightly against her chest.  "I'll have to look
closely."
     Curry nodded, remembering his partner's prowess as a behavioral
analyst.  In order to have an effective team to study any creature, the
behavioralist was crucial to success.  Animal rights groups had passed
strict laws preventing experimentation with living creatures.  These
rules were so puritanical that they forbid taking blood and tissue
samples from any living beast.  Curry knew that all of the physiological
data sent back from Frobe's had come from dead frobedozers.  Frowning at
the restrictions on his specialty, David remembered the terrible waiting
and watching for his beloved creatures to die.  Only after starvation or
a larger predator had killed his subject could he run tests that gave him
clues to the animal's secrets.  Xo was an incredible compromise won by
the scientific community: some alien creatures could be brought back to
earth for a short time.  That meant using suspended animation to
transport them, by far a more dangerous risk than simple tissue samples. 
Yet, the animal rights groups that spawned these restrictions did not
govern transportation of alien life to earth for behavioral studies.  In
short, David and Leslie could look, but not touch.
     Tugging at the tight, white lab coat that was still chic in
scientific circles, Leslie used her weight to nudge Dave from the best
observation spot.  The frobedozer, lacking the senses to react to her
movement, sat like a stone sphinx that awaited the spell to animate it. 
It walked on four legs, and like elephants, had a heavy, ambling gait. 
Like a bulldog, the bulk of its body rested over the shorter front legs,
but the beast didn't look like it would topple forward.  Behind the front
legs and atop the rhinoceros shaped body was the impressive head of the
frobedozer.  Organized into two major segments, its head was this
creature's largest feature by mass.  The fore part of the head carried
the teeth and tongue of the beast, and supported by a series of bones
reminiscent of a backhoe, could extend forward and down to feed. 
Sporting an impressive set of shiny, silvery teeth and a lower jaw with
two joints on each side, the frobedozer could eat a pessimist in a few
bites.  The cranium of sorts was positioned farther back, showing itself
as a huge dome where the earth's races preferred a spine.  Supported
directly by the might of an extensive rib and cross-brace skeleton, this
enormous brain case would be the focus of the doctor's study. 
Observation of the beast in the wild had been fruitless.
     "One of the largest brains in the known universe," Curry shook his
head, his voice carrying a hint of envy.  "And it's not connected to
anything!"
     "But it was," Leslie reminded by poking him in the ribs and
pointing to the forward head section.  "Those nubs on the top of the head
were once ears, but evolution and lack of use has closed the ear canals. 
The smallest armor plates on the sides cover what were once eyes.  Again,
they were unneeded because Mother Nature on Frobe's let the optic nerve
decay.  The snout above those frightening incisors could have had the
sensitive scent cells once, but armor within the snout couldn't be
connected to any living nerves."
     "Then our study must focus on the sense that has replaced these
common ones," David spied an angry woman approaching them and pursed his
lips together.  "Speaking of predators...."
     "Do you know how much that thing weighs?" Denise Dolr waved a
portable CAD holographic plate in front of the doctors.  "Nearly 18 tons! 
Look at the length of it.  Even without a tail, it spans 32 feet.  Do you
know what that means?"
     "Its big?" Dr. Stewart followed up a dumb look with a hearty laugh. 
After seeing Dolr's stony frown, she continued.  "Oh, don't be like our
frobedozer friend here and lose your sense... of humor."
     "Its too big, doctor," Dolr got herself under control.  The five-
foot-tall bundle of energy pushed a blonde braid back over her shoulder. 
"Your monster is 12 feet longer than I was told."
     "We only had general specifications," Curry put one hand on his
colleagues arm to keep her from stirring up Dolr.  "They sent us back one
of the larger frobedozers.  You know that the ship that carried the
creature got here faster than the message.  It should grow more after
eating your synthetic pessimist meat."
     "I don't care how much it eats," Denise's blue eyes sparked red. 
"It's too big for that cage now.  It could brace its rear legs on the
back wall and use a front shoulder to bend the duroglass.  Duroglass
doesn't have many weaknesses, but a giant, raving monster from space is
one of them."
     "Raving monster?" Leslie ignored Dave's grip.  "There's only one
creature raving in this room, and it isn't the frobedozer."
     "It has shown no interest in escape," Curry jumped in before Denise
exploded.  "They are motionless animals except when eating and mating, so
the risk to the duroglass is minimal.  The front wall should hold if the
frobedozer leans on it, correct?"
     "It will hold just fine," Denise conceded.  "If the frobedozer is
as strong as I think it is, it could exceed shatter point by pushing on
the front and back of the cage at once.  An 80 by 20 foot sheet of 3 inch
duroglass isn't as strong as the structural wall in the back."
     "We will note your concern with the administrator, Ms. Dolr," Dave
gave the young woman a fatherly smile.  "If it's in the budget, I'll
suggest the construction of a larger holding pen."
     "In other words," Denise nodded, "I can forget it.  I just came
from the administrator's office, and the only way we could do that is
with private funding.  I don't think a collection between us will cover
it."
     She spun to leave, and the doctors walked slowly after the speeding
architect.
     "Let's review the films brought back from Frobe's," Leslie
suggested.  "There's got to be a behavioral clue somewhere."
                   *               *               *
     Larry Porti, the maintenance man, directed his robots to polish the
observation deck next to the frobedozer's cage.  He stood with his back
to the beast as the bots scurried around his feet.
     "It will probably rain when my shift ends," the twenty-year-old
boss told his bots.  "Just my luck.  Probably lightning and hail too."
     Behind him, the frobedozer stirred.  The ponderous beast moved its
column legs inches at a time to face the clean duroglass.  Opening the
extreme hinge on its lower jaw, the frobedozer froze again as saliva
dripped between the edges of its serrated teeth.  When Porti turned to
command the bots to clean the duroglass, he was shocked to see the
mammoth form inches away.  The frobedozer responded by slamming the jaw
shut with a low whump.
     "Geze," Porti fell back a step as his face paled.  "Don't do that! 
I could have a heart attack any time!"
     As the youth decided to move to the next cage, the frobedozer
repeated the jaw snap, slightly louder.  Larry took the hilt of his long
flashlight and pounded it on the glass.
     "Quiet in there," Larry seemed to remember that the big thing was
deaf, but that didn't stop him from yelling.  "Settle down.  You're could
wake up the other monsters in the zoo."
     After a third, softer clamp, the frobedozer stood still and lowered
itself onto the spongy ground in its chamber.  Larry, nodding in his
surprise that something went right, ushered his bots along.
     "You'll all get me fired some day," Porti scolded his metallic army
as he pointed at a missed spot on the floor.
                   *               *               *
     "OK, partner, let's find the obvious," Leslie sat heavily into the
padded armchair and snapped up the remote before David could reach it. 
"You might look like a gun-slinger, but you're sure slow on the draw."
     "Not as slow as our friend in the observation chamber," Curry
passed on his usual complaint when Leslie got to run the remote.  He
gently sat in the chair next to hers.
     "Let's look at the hunting piece," David recommended.  "I
understand that shows the whole process.  Perhaps we can pick out what
our junior associates on Frobe's missed."
     "Rolling!" Dr. Stewart happily punched the buttons, but frowned
when the floor of the holographic arena showed a football game.  "Damn!"
     "Give me that remote, doctor," Curry's long arm reached across the
table between them.  Leslie held on all the tighter and changed the
channel to the universal shopping network.
     "If you would only use the AI to command it," Dave recoiled after
receiving a slap on the hand, "you wouldn't need to punch the buttons."
     "Ah, but what of the instantaneous whims of switching channels?"
Leslie smiled.  "No one wants to look stupid and tell an AI to keep
switching between a thousand channels.  That sort of mental vacancy can
only be achieved by using the remote yourself."
     Curry risked another slap and stabbed a finger at the remote to
switch on the AI.  "Frobedozer files please.  Feeding sequence number 1."
     Leslie frowned, set the remote down and settled back to watch the
new footage.
     It was dawn on this corner of Frobe's planet, but that didn't
matter to the lone frobedozer.  The hunter had no appreciation for the
waving, yellow grasses of the plain or the red sun struggling above the
horizon.  There was only the taste of the prey's blood, and this
frobedozer was hungry.  In its heedless charge of 3 miles per hour, the
beast cut a belly-heavy path across the deep grass and blundered through
the occasional heavy bush that had the misfortune to grow in its path.
     "Look at the power in its momentum!" Dr. Curry pointed a long
finger at the mangled, uprooted bush.  "I believe this thing could toss
aside many of our planet's trees without a second thought."
     "It would run over a tree before having it's first thought," Leslie
jotted notes on her electronic pad.  "Without any senses, how can it tell
where it's going?"
     Curry shrugged.  "It certainly looks like it knows where it wants
to go."
     Sides heaving from the exertion of the trek, the giant slowed.  It
opened both sets of joints on the lower jaw, and in a spray of saliva,
snapped the jaw shut in a resounding boom.
     "Its been doing that for the past two miles," the voice of the
holographer sounded like the chirp of a bird compared to the frobedozer's
report.  "It's after a pessimist that's still nearly a mile away.  At the
frobedozer's present speed, I estimate this to be nearly twenty minutes
away.  Remember that the predator started to move an hour ago and has
picked up speed to nearly four miles per hour.  I'm going to switch to my
partner who is recording the pessimist."
     "Here's the scene when we first heard the frobedozer an hour ago,"
the young lady spoke in excited, rushed whispers.  "Here, for the first
time on film, is the pessimist going into Arrest, or a frozen, hypnotic
state."
     The pounding feet of the frobedozer faded, giving way to a herd of
pessimist.  The pessimist was similar to the earth llama, but had short,
prickly hair and, being a plains dweller, had a heavier, less athletic
body.  Unlike their earth relative, two sharp horns jutted forth from a
raised bone at the back of the skull.  The double jaw joints that were
common on Frobe's were common on the pessimist.  Several of the young
beasts played a simple game of hide and seek in the tall grass while the
parents grazed with the calm of their greater age and weight.
     "Notice the various colors of furs on the pessimists," she
continued.  "Yellow, dark green, brown, gold and two shades of red are
common.  We surmise that, since the frobedozer is a blind predator, there
has been no advantage to being a yellow-furred pessimist to match the
yellow grass.  Camouflage has meant nothing to the herbivores in
evolution.  Since yellow is the predominant coat color, the color could
have meant survival when the frobedozer had eyes."
     "I remember having her enthusiasm for an expedition," Leslie
sighed.  "Twenty years and forty pounds ago.  Let's sign up for another
mission, Curry."
     "Shhh!"
     "Now," the woman continued, "here comes the first sounding from the
frobedozer."
     The distant boom of the predator's thunder rolled across the plain,
and the entire herd jumped to attention.  Sensitive, twitching ears
turned to the west.  None of them moved.
     "This is the unusual part," the young behavioralist's voice was
back.  "The entire herd is frozen in their steps and will not move until
the frobedozer sounds again."
     Nearly ten minutes later, a second sounding rumbled in the
distance.  The pessimists on the north and south fringes of the herd
bounded away, towing nearby young in their wake.  Over the next hour, the
scene repeated until there was one beast frozen in the swaying grasses. 
The dark, lumbering form of the predator was a mere hundred yards away.
     "The victim appears to be a large pessimist approximately the size
of a North American Elk," she yelled over the most recent jaw-snap. 
"Switching back to you Paul!"
     "Here's the part we've called the blitz," he could barely be heard
over a series of booming snaps from the predator.  "The last few yards,
the frobedozer uses its maximum speed of 4 miles-per-hour and the loudest
noise blasts.  See the climax for yourself."
     The frobedozer was nearly upon the statuesque pessimist, but the
terrified animal refused to move.  As the gigantic weight of the
predator's chest plowed into the victim, it made a belated effort to
escape.  The momentum of the contact knocked the pessimist to the ground,
and its feet scrambled desperately against the sky.  The frobedozer's low
bulk passed over the kicking beast, and slim bones snapped in the impact. 
After the 'dozer realized it had indeed struck something, it wheeled
around to begin feeding on the tenderized meat.  The movie continued
until the frobedozer walked away and settled down in the afternoon sun. 
The two young doctors moved into the hologram, to the rear of the
slumbering beast.  The pair wore traditional safari outfits in the
blazing sun.
     "There it is," the dark-haired, sweating woman put her arm around
the young man next to her.  "This is the first complete footage of a
frobedozer stalking and killing a pessimist.  Our written report of the
event will accompany this recording.  AI stop record."
     Curry gave Leslie an embarrassed glance and took out the
handkerchief that he carried for her use.
     "Thanks, Dave," she dabbed at her tears before honking into the
soft cloth.
     "You must be proud of your niece," he said after a moment.  "She's
much like you."
     "Yes," Leslie's tears left.  "It's good to see her again.  But I'm
green with envy too."
     Curry's eyebrows jumped over his glasses.  "You've had discoveries
that were just as important...."
     "Not the animals," she folded her arms in a fake pout.  "One second
after that recording stopped she got the hug of a lifetime from her
partner.  Do you remember that feeling, Dave?"
     He cleared his throat.  "Of course.  But your niece has done her
job, and we'll have to work for our natural high.  Have you ever seen a
predator that kills its prey by running them over like a bulldozer?"
     "My niece named the predator well," Leslie shook her head.  "A
constricting snake crushes a victim, but at least it knows the victim's
there.  The frobedozer must be surprised as it runs over the pessimist.
     "Your niece's odd sense of humor didn't please the administration,
though," Dave recalled.  "If I remember her first report from Frobe's,
Mary wanted to call the prey a christian."
     "Mary watched too many old movies where the Romans fed pacifists to
the lions," Leslie smiled at the youngster's spunk.  "To her, they looked
like a person waiting for fate in the jaws of a lion."
     "Pessimist seems to have stuck as the unofficial name," David
shifted to rest his chin on a folded fist.  "It seems that the beast
expects the worst and waits for the frobedozer to run it over."
     "My niece tripped up the administration on the frobedozer hunting
theory," Leslie smiled.  "Once initial reports from the robot probes on
Frobe's sent back data on the mysterious predator, our illustrious
leaders believed they had found a creature that hunted with psi power. 
Since it had no senses, could the frobedozer detect and hypnotise the
pessimist with a primitive mental power?"
     Curry smiled as he remembered the hot debate and the political
struggle to be project leader.
     "When Mary arrived, her team made this film and studied it
repeatedly. Noticing the odd reaction of the herd of pessimist, she began
to use recorded frobedozer soundings to test the pessimists.  My niece
found that the sounding is the key to sending a pessimist into Arrest. 
The pessimist has sensitive, directional ears and an odd mental quirk
that lets them be overwhelmed by the frobedozer's jaw snap."
     "AI, roll the recording marked 'Frobedozer sounding tests,'" Dr.
Curry ordered as he saw Leslie fumble with the remote.
     Mary's image filled the entire room.  Since she was too near the
holographic recorder, the device was unable to see the landscape and
scale her down to a proportional size.  Dressed for the dry heat of
Frobe's open plain, none of her long thigh was covered by her tight
shorts.
     "What are you looking at?" Leslie noticed Curry's fixed gaze.
     After shifting back in his chair, Dave gave her an innocent look. 
"Please, Dr. Stewart, I'm a professional and thrice her age."
     "Not quite a professional, if I remember," Leslie smiled as he
reddened slightly.  "But almost."
     "Rolling, Mary," the holographer's voice got the young woman's
attention.
     "Whoops," she stood, faced the recorder and dabbed at her sweaty
brow with a cloth.  She stepped back and shrank to scale, as the plain
behind her burst into view.  Amidst the yellow waves of grass, a herd of
forty pessimists grazed lazily in the hot sun.  "As you know from our
prior reports, we are studying the frobedozer's method of sending a
pessimist into Arrest.  I think these films will show that there is no
psi power involved here.  Sorry, folks, I know that theory was really
popular back home."
     Mary's mischievous smile was for her aunt, and Leslie understood. 
Neither Mary nor Leslie had sided with the psi-hunter theory.
     "After we saw many frobedozer kills, one trend formed," she
continued.  "When the frobedozer makes its first sounding and starts the
miles-long charge to the herd, it travels in a perfectly straight line."
     The right side of the holographic auditorium became a map of the
area.  Flashing red points showed the location of the frobedozer and the
pessimist, and a straight, white line showed the path taken by the
predator.  Statistics beneath the map revealed that the beast never
strayed more than 2 degrees from the target before correcting the path. 
Mary continued.
     "In effect, as soon as its victim is frozen, it knows exactly where
to go.  There is no hesitation or deviation along the way, and therefore
little wasted energy.  Our theory is this: the frobedozer senses the
distant movement of the herd while its sensitive belly rests on the
ground.  As soon as it feels the distant movement of the herd, it picks
out the center of the group and makes its initial sounding.  The sound
freezes the pessimist herd, and the frobedozer begins the run.  As it
closes in, the frobedozer keeps sounding, thus holding the prey in place. 
When it runs over the unlucky pessimist, it knows it is time to feed."
     "The sounding itself has two consistent characteristics among the
10 frobedozers that we had followed," the young woman put her safari hat
on and didn't have to squint in the face of the morning sun.  "The first
is the low note the clamping jaws produce.  As stated in our previous
reports, the frobedozer has no vocal cords, so the sound is produced
solely from the impact of molar on molar and magnified by the shape of
the mouth.  Interesting fact number 1.  The soundings that we have
recorded are all in the range of 50 Hz: a low thud to our ears. 
Interesting fact number 2.  The frobedozer's head and lower jaw form a
long barrel just before the teeth meet.  This makes the sounding a
directional weapon.  Here's an excerpt from last week's frobedozer
attack, number A16.  We were trying to find the decibel level at varying
angles."
     The holographic map fell away and half of the arena showed a
charging frobedozer.  Mary was directly in front of the predator, back-
pedalling and aiming a sensor array at the leviathan.  Leslie reached
across the table and gripped Curry's arm.
     "She should know better than that," Leslie waved at the recording
of her niece and hoped Mary would get out of the way.  "If she falls, she
might not be able to get up and out of the way in time.  The frobedozer
isn't going to stop."
     "I remember dozens of crazy things that you did," Dave patted her
arm and let out a short laugh.  "What about climbing to the Roak's nest
on Terlex?  How far did you fall in .9 Earth gravity?"
     Leslie looked at the scars where the radius and ulna of her right
arm had cut through the skin.  She shrugged.  "I got the hologram, didn't
I?"
     "Watch your niece," Curry put a finger to his lips.  "Shhh."
     "Here comes the sounding," the first recorded Mary pointed to the
Mary in front of the frobedozer.
     "WWWWHUMPPPP!"
     "Wow!" Mary number 2 nearly fell backwards at the impact of the
sound.  "110 decibels at 0 degrees heading.  No wonder this stuns the
pessimists.  Moving to 30 degrees from center."
     The holographic image sped ahead to the next sounding.
     "Right there," a young man's voice came from outside of the
recorder's.  "No, a little more to your left.  That's it."
     "Shut up Paul," Mary breathed heavily as she hauled the heavy
sensors.  "I don't want you to screw up the reading for the next
sounding."
     "WHUMP!"
     "Quite a difference," she yelled over the pounding feet of the
animal.  "Down to 103 decibels.  Still a good strain on the eardrums,
though."
     Again, the recording raced.  When it returned to normal speed, Mary
was drenched with sweat and her steps had become little more than a
constant stumble.  She had lugged the sensors for over 2 miles in
reverse.  Even the slow pace of the frobedozer was becoming too much.
     "That's good," Paul's voice called out.  "You're at 60 degrees from
heading."
     She nodded and gasped before the next sounding.
     "Whump!"
     "92... decibels," Mary called and collapsed back into the tall
grass, and the frobedozer lumbered by.
     The inset hologram disappeared, and Mary's first image returned to
full size.
     "After I had run those two miles and sweated off several pounds,"
Mary's grin was back, "I'm glad to report that I'm now sure the
frobedozer does not have a sense of smell."
     Leslie chuckled while Curry put his hand to his forehead.
     "Two Stewarts may be too much for the administration," Dave shook
his head.
     "Two Stewart women should be too much for anybody," Leslie glanced
at him to see how high his eyebrows jumped.
     "Now that we have recorded the sounding and know the appropriate
decibel levels," Mary returned to business and walked to her left. 
"Here's the directional speaker system we've rigged up.  The long barrel
attached to the sub-woofer speaker should simulate the volume, pitch and
direction of a real sounding.  The pessimists in the distance are our
target.  We are approximately one half mile away.  We expect the entire
herd to freeze at the first sounding.  As we get closer, the directional
sounding should freeze less and less of the herd until only one is left. 
Our target pessimist has been marked with a blot of blue paint.  Our
target is just to the left of center of the herd.  Let's go Paul."
     The scale of the hologram shrunk to include the entire herd and the
sounding device.  While Paul stayed behind the rim of the recorder, Mary
triggered the frobedozer call on the sounding device.
     "WHUMP!"
     Many of the beasts in the herd froze, while a few on the left and
right flanks sprinted away.  The frozen pessimists lifted their heads and
turned parabolic ears toward the sound.  Mary activated the cart beneath
the speaker system, and it moved ahead at a slow walk.
     "If you hear a trumpet or other directional instrument from a
distance," she called over her shoulder, "the note is much clearer and
louder when the trumpet is aimed right at you.  That's the basis of our
theory here.  The pessimist has a certain note that will freeze it, but
the susceptibility to that note depends on the aim of the frobedozer.  As
the frobedozer rumbles closer, and the barrel of the mouth is aimed
directly at one particular pessimist, the rest of the herd sprints away. 
With the pessimists grazing so closely together, the frobedozer is bound
to run over one."
     "WHUMP!"
     More pessimists scattered and ran in a long loop away from their
frozen cousins.  They began to gather at the extreme edge of the hologram
and graze again.
     "WHUMP!"
     Mary had sounded every ten minutes, just as the frobedozer had
done.  At 200 yards, only 10 of the original 400 were left.  After one
more sounding and closing the gap to 20 yards, one pessimist remained.
     "Here's the pessimist with the paint marking," Mary smiled and
walked to within five yards of the staring animal.  "In the next few
minutes, the pessimist will come out of Arrest and bolt out of here.  I'm
going to get behind the speaker cart in case it decides to run this way."
     Two minutes later, the pessimist's ears twitched suddenly, followed
by an explosion of motion.  It bounded off to the researcher's left and
hurried to catch up with the rest of the herd.
     "There it is," Mary motioned for Paul to walk into the holographic
field, and the slim man appeared at the edge of the display.  "With no
psi power of any kind, Paul and I have caught our own pessimist.  The
sounding itself seems to freeze a pessimist in place - a quirk in the
pessimist that's worthy of an in-depth study.  Of the 48 frobedozer
charges that we have seen in the past three months, all of them have
ended in a kill.  I have seen no earth predator with this kind of
success.  Our next tests will center on the frobedozer's methods of
detecting pessimists.  We will see if we can induce one of them to charge
at us."
     The holographic image faded.
     "It was quite some time before their next report," Curry stood and
stretched his tall frame before sitting back down.  "The frobedozer
remained an enigma."
     Leslie fiddled with the remote and was shocked to see the correct
image come to life.  Mary and Paul sat at a folding table in their
cabin/research center.  Piles of equipment and stacks of holographic
cubes leaned against the walls.
     "This is our required interim report on frobedozer research," Mary
sat on the left, hands folded.  Paul was more relaxed, but his drawn face
and red eyes showed the weight of a long day's work.  Mary, though
looking much like she had in the previous recording, acted more reserved
and professional.  "We've set out to study how the frobedozer identifies
its target and tracks it down.  Since we know the frobedozer doesn't have
the traditional tools of sight, smell and hearing, our theory centered on
the frobedozer's sense of touch.  We believed that the frobedozer could
feel the distant vibrations of the herd in the ground and then would
sound in that direction.  As it charged in a straight line, it would
continue to sound until it ran over a pessimist."
     Mary reached for a glass of water and took a quick sip.
     "First, we searched for a trend in the timing of a frobedozer
attack," she put down the glass heavily.  "We know that a frobedozer
needs to feed approximately once every 48 hours.  However, our
observation shows that some won't eat for a week, even if an entire herd
of pessimists runs within 100 yards!  There is even a frobedozer starving
to death a few miles from here.  As far as we know, the beast is in its
frobedozer prime: approximately 15 years old and physically sound.  To
add to the confusion relating to our theory, the physiologists have
submitted their initial findings on the frobedozer's nervous system.  It
seems that the soft belly area that we guessed would be used to sense
hoof-beats has no living nerve endings.  In fact, if our colleagues are
correct, the only tactile nerves that are connected to that massive
frobedozer brain are in the predator's mouth, around the muzzle and a few
in the pads of its feet.  Other than those sensitive areas, the
frobedozer is a living stone."
     Mary rubbed her eyes.  "Go ahead Paul."
     "Another theory we had," his voice was low, soft, "was a form of
echolocation, like earth bats or cetaceans.  We guessed the sounding
might be more than a stunning tool, it might also be a locating device. 
Since the frobedozer hunts on a plain, the herds would stand out on the
horizon.  Unfortunately, this was not supported in our behavioral studies
or in the creature's anatomy.  Without the sense of sound, the frobedozer
would have to have an extremely sensitive system of tactile nerves around
the muzzle.  We had hoped to find an array of cilia or other gauzy
substance that would act as the receiving point for the reflected
soundings.  There is no such structure on the beast."
     "You could hit it on the snout with a baseball bat," Mary frowned,
"and the frobedozer would barely feel it.  The nerves in the muzzle seem
to be used in feeding and mating, but that's it."
     "We have tried extensive tests to find the frobedozer's prey
selection process," Paul put his hand on Mary's before she became
angrier.  "We created a device that simulated the hoof-beats of a
pessimist.  We tried this machine near several frobedozers and, though
our simulated hooves looked like real ones to our seismographic devices,
we didn't get as much as one sounding.  In fact, as we were about to give
up after 6 hours of running our hoof machine, our target frobedozer
sounded and charged past our lure.  We followed it for 2 miles before it
crashed into a frozen pessimist.  How could it sense the distant herd
with our constant pounding?"
     "Since we could find no connection between the vibrations of the
hoof-beats and the frobedozer's charge, we tried another theory," Mary
took over as Paul reached out of the hologram for his glass of water. 
"We had been chasing after the frobedozer during the daytime, because
that was most convenient for us.  However, we noticed that occasionally,
the frobedozers moved at night to make a kill.  It took us several weeks,
but we were able to witness two frobedozer charges.  This is where the
hoof-beat theory washes away entirely.  When the frobedozer makes its
first sounding and starts the charge, the entire pessimist herd was
sleeping.  In both kills, the doomed pessimist remained frozen, still
curled up on the ground!  There's no way that the frobedozer could have
known the herd was there."
     Paul checked off items on his electronic notebook.  "We have also
tested the frobedozers for all types of radiation.  There are no
emissions from that huge brain in any form, and therefore it is not using
any conventional form of detection through radiation."
     "When we had eliminated these possibilities," Mary's face reddened,
"we had to consider the possibility of psi detection.  We were able to
prove that the soundings freeze the prey instead of psi power, however we
can't discount that the frobedozer is able to locate pessimists through a
form of mental power.  To assist us, the physiologists have studied the
brains of dead frobedozers.  All of their data is enclosed in this
library, but they only found more questions.  This is one area where we
will need help.  Maybe Curry can make heads or tails out of this."
     As her niece paused, Leslie couldn't help but smile.  She knew Mary
hated to ask for help from anyone, let alone the administration's
"favorite," David Curry.
     "In addition," Mary folded her hands and sagged at the shoulders in
a tired expression, "we have found another behavioral oddity.  At first
we thought that each frobedozer sounding led to a charge and each charge
led to a kill.  Now that we have spent six months with these great
predators, we have found an exception to this rule.  We have called it
the 'proximity phenomena.'  We have seen pessimist herds get within a
hundred yards of a frobedozer, and occasionally, the frobedozer will
sound at a nearby pessimist.  This sounding is softer than the one before
a charge, and it is not powerful enough to freeze the pessimist. 
However, if the pessimist stays close, the frobedozer will continue this
soft sounding.  Also, the frobedozer seems to pick out one pessimist of
the herd and directs the soundings at that singular beast.  We decided to
mark those pessimists with dye pellets for later study.  Curiously
enough, 95% of these pessimists were later killed by the frobedozer that
made the soft soundings.  Though we have not found a good explanation for
the 'proximity phenomenon,' we have packaged up the data to be studied. 
Here's an odd revelation of this data.  If a male aims a soft sounding at
the pessimist, the frobedozer will eat the pessimist within a week. 
However, if a female frobedozer sounds during the 'proximity phenomena,'
she only makes the kill 80% of the time.  Here's the weird part.  The
lucky pessimists who are not killed by the sounding female are killed by
another frobedozer a short time later!"
     "We will continue research and report as scheduled," Mary shrugged
at the tangle of information she had reviewed.  "We will await any advice
from the administration.  Sorry auntie!"
     The hologram faded and the two senior staffers remained silent for
a time.  As usual, Leslie broke the reverie first.
     "I've never seen this type of behavior," Dr. Stewart shook her head
and looked over to her statuesque partner.  "I'll see if I can find a
pattern to the soundings.  I think my niece was right about the soundings
paralyzing the pessimists.  The real trick is how the frobedozer knows
the pessimists are there.  How does the frobedozer know when to sound and
when to charge?  How can a creature that lacks so many of our predator's
senses be able to make kills every time it charges?"
     "I'll put together a team to study the structure of the
frobedozer's brain," Curry's neck creaked as he stretched.  "I suspect
that we may be able to find a hidden sense by looking within the enormous
brain case.  I have heard that one physiologist on Frobe's called the
frobedozer's brain 'arcane.'  Perhaps we can trace the nerve endings to
some meaningful structure that the pessimist uses for vibrations."
     "Can you spell frobedozer?" Leslie chuckled.  "O-v-e-r-t-i-m-e."
                   *               *               *
     "Alright, lets feed it," Leslie told Denise Dolr.  "Were not on our
scheduled time.  Let's see if it detects...."
     Immediately, the frobedozer was on its feet and sounding with a
duroglass rattling clamp of its jaws.
     "Denise!" Leslie scolded the small architect.
     "I didn't open the chamber," Denise put one hand on her hip while
holding the remote in front of the scientist.  "The only indication that
feeding was going to begin was the heat from the meat-thawing unit."
     The frobedozer sounded again in a thunderous report.  It marched to
the feeding port on the right side of the cage and placed its barrel
chest against the composite wall.  Sounding again and stamping its front
feet into the ground, the hungry frobedozer shook the building to its
foundations.
     "Doctor, I don't like the idea of teasing this thing," Denise
backed away, putting her smaller form behind Leslie's.  "Remember what I
said about the duroglass...."
     After watching the beast intently for another minute, Leslie
shrugged and nodded at Denise.
     "Stop your temper tantrum," Leslie walked up to the duroglass and
watched the home-grown pessimist meat slide into the frobedozer's feeding
bowl.  "Eat and get fatter."
     "Didn't tell you much, huh?" Denise approached the window.  She
felt safer now that the giant had something to eat besides a scientist
and an architect.  "You've tried a lot of combinations in the last week. 
It knows when its about to get a ration of meat.  Its almost spooky."
     "The answer is right in front of us somewhere, Denise," Leslie was
so close to the duroglass that her nose left a tiny smudge.  "The
frobedozer is able to sense that meat, and it must have an efficient
way."
     Leslie watched the front segment of the frobedozer's head dip down
to snap up the last of the meat.  The ponderous beast backed up three
slow paces and lowered itself to the ground.
     "I have a theory," Curry's voice carried from the far side of the
containment building.  He walked with a light, dancing step as he
approached the women.
     "I'm not having any luck," Leslie hated to admit it.  "We've tried
changing feeding times, feeding it twice, feeding it a scrap of meat and
feeding it a mountain of meat.  As soon as we command the feeding machine
to crank into action, the frobedozer begins to sound.  It's trying my
patience a little."
     "This may help," Curry had listened intently to her results, but he
rubbed his hands together as he explained his idea.  "Our study of the
brain has centered around a crystalline cone in the center of the brain
case."
     "There's a crystal in the brain?" Leslie wondered aloud.
     "Not the garden variety crystal either," Curry folded his arms. 
"It is five feet long and widens from a point to a cylindrical base."
     "Wow," Leslie pursed her lips and pulled up a nearby folding chair. 
She sat heavily on the creaking wood.  "And we complain about kidney
stones."
     "Well, unlike kidney stones, we think this cone belongs there,"
Curry nodded to Denise as she dragged two more chairs over.  "The cone is
attached to the weight-bearing skeletal structure of the frobedozer.  In
fact, the crystal's weight is supported by an elaborate series of bones
that sit atop the shoulder and rib braces.  Ms. Dolr, what would that
tell you about the crystal?"
     David opened his holographic plate, and a frobedozer skeleton
floated before the architect's critical gaze.  The crystal sat on its
base with the apex of the cone pointing to the top of the brain case. 
     "It would either be very heavy or be needed as a connecting point
for the support structure," she nodded after making up her mind.
     "Ah, excellent!" David immediately typed a note to himself.  "I've
been so busy with my theory, I haven't gotten the exact weight of the
crystal.  However, here's a third reason why the crystal is attached to
the skeleton: this crystal might be sensing vibrations."
     "How?" Leslie smiled at the thought.  The psi theory would be out
the window again.  "Do you mean the vibrations from the pessimist's hoof-
beats?"
     "Exactly," the reserved doctor allowed himself a satisfied smile. 
"The ground on Frobe's is extremely hard because rain is rare. 
Pessimists are heavy beasts themselves, being somewhat like a llama
that's bigger than a camel.  When they run, they make a distinct echo
across the landscape: a low thud that can't be mistaken on Frobe's
grassy, flat plain.  Now, the frobedozer doesn't have sensitive nerves on
the skin's surface, but it does have this crystal.  Since the crystal is
directly connected to the shoulders, and thus the arms, thus the feet,
thus the ground, it could be the sensory organ for these vibrations. 
This extremely keen sense of touch could identify distant herds and tell
the frobedozer when to sound and begin the charge.  It would be similar
to putting your ear on a train track to hear the distant hum of a
locomotive.  Evolution eventually atrophied the other senses until they
weren't used.  The frobedozer's brain grows all around the crystal and
bathes it in sensitive nerves.  Though I don't get too excited about a
theory until I have proved it, I can't help but think I'm on the right
track."
     "Terrific, David," Leslie clapped her hands and leaned out of her
chair to hug him.  "How about helping me explain how this frobedozer
knows that our feeding machine's vibrations are the same as a pessimist? 
How about the frobedozers who hunt at night when the pessimists are
sleeping?  How about the machine that simulated pessimist hoof-beats? 
How about that weird 'proximity phenomena' that my niece discovered?"
     "Behavioral studies are your specialty," Curry jumped to his feet. 
"In other words, not my problem."
     Denise and Leslie watched the sixty-year-old trot across the
polished floor and out of the far door.
     "He's acting weird," Denise shook her head.
     "No," Leslie laughed.  "That's being himself.  I met him when I was
about your age, and he was about 40.  We've spent years studying strange
creatures on several worlds, and success in his work makes him do that. 
If it hadn't been for the need to see his grandchildren, he would still
be a journeyman.  This was always the best time to get him to go
dancing."
     "I've never seen him dance," the architect frowned.
     "I've got the crushed toes to prove it!"
     "Good luck with your monster," Denise stood suddenly and clipped
the remote on her belt and headed for the door.  "I'll be back tomorrow
to help you with another feeding experiment.  Good night."
     "Good night, Denise," Leslie looked back to the sphinx in the cage. 
The frobedozer, as usual, was motionless as a stone.
     Then it moved.  The fore-segment of the predator's massive head
pointed at the scientist in the chair.  It opened its lower jaw joint
slightly.
     "Whump."
     "Oh my God!" Leslie jumped out of her chair and moved away from the
giant's threat.  "That's a proximity phenomena.  It thinks it's going to
eat me."
     Leslie corrected herself.  This frobedozer was a female, and as
Mary reported, would only eat the subject 80% of the time.  What a
comforting thought.
     "Whump."
     Leslie moved another few feet from the glass and sidled to her
left.  Just before she turned to run for Curry, the frobedozer's head
moved to her right.
     "Whump."
     The scientist looked in the direction of the sounding and saw the
maintenance man and his herd of robots a few feet behind her.
     "Larry," she tried to pull herself together.  "How long have you
been here?"
     "A minute or two, Dr. Stewart," the youth in a dark, maintenance
cover-alls responded.  "I know these dumb bots will mess up the job
somehow, so I have to watch them every minute."
     "Did you just hear the frobedozer sound?" she looked at the half
dozen robots that buffed the floor.  They were creating thousands of
minute vibrations.
     "Whump."
     "Like that, Dr. Stewart?" Larry scratched his tousled, sandy hair. 
He took his flashlight from his belt and jogged over to the duroglass. 
"I'll quiet it down for you before you get into trouble for having an
unruly monster."
     Before Leslie could stop him, Larry pulled back his muscled arm and
slammed the flashlight's base against the glass.
     "Smack!  Smack!"
     "WHUMP!"
     The last sounding, an order of magnitude greater than before,
rattled the research center with a low, loud note.  Porti staggered back
and held his ears.
     "Sorry, doctor," he gave her a sidelong, sheepish look.  "That
normally quiets it down.  Now you're mad at me."
     "Tell your bots to shut down!" Leslie pointed to the mechanical
troops.  "A frobedozer responds to vibrations.  That's the way it stuns
its prey.  I think it wants to eat your robots!"
     "WHUMP!" the report echoed throughout the huge hall.
     "Take five," Larry used his personally tailored command to stop his
charges.  "I'm not paying for you when you get eaten."
     Leslie felt a chill creep into her body as the blind, deaf beast
followed the maintenance man's every movement.  The giant head aimed
right at Larry as he moved from robot to robot.  With the motionless bots
no longer making vibrations, the frobedozer must have focused its
attention on Larry's footfalls.  Shoring up her courage, Leslie wanted to
see if the frobedozer's attention could be fooled.
     "Larry," she held a warning hand as if he carelessly walked a
tightrope.  "Don't move.  Stay where you are and keep your feet still."
     "I knew it!" Porti picked up one foot and looked down at the soul
of a worn sneaker.  "I stepped in the durowax before it was dry, right?"
     "No, no.  Just don't move," Leslie watched the motionless
frobedozer open both segments of its huge jaw.  "Cover your ears!"
     "WHUMP!"
     "Damn thing's going to ruin my hearing, doctor," the young man took
his hands away from his ears and put them into his pockets.  "Why can't I
move?"
     "I want to see if I can distract the frobedozer," Leslie walked to
stand in front of the maintenance man.  "You stay still, and I'll walk
away from you and see if the frobedozer follows me."
     Leslie walked away from Larry slowly, but the frobedozer's broad
snout remained pointed at the man.  Walking back in front of him quickly,
Leslie paused before stomping away from the man.  Again, the frobedozer
would not be fooled.
     "What's going on?" Porti took a baseball cap out of his back pocket
and yanked it over his head.  "I caused a problem, didn't I?"
     "No," Dr. Stewart folded her arms and stared at the predator.  "It
only senses you.  I'm going to lift you up, so don't yell or anything."
     "What?"
     Leslie, though inches shorter and pounds heavier than the lanky
youth, still had the strength that had allowed her to thrive in the
planetary frontier.  She moved behind Larry, circled her arms around him,
leaned back to lift and grunted as she moved him five feet.  After
dropping him back to his feet, she leaned on him to catch her breath and
looked at the beast.  She held her breath, though her body screamed in
oxygen debt.
     The frobedozer still pointed at Porti.
     "I think that animal likes me," Larry waved at it, forgetting the
frobedozer's nearly complete lack of senses.
     "Larry, please walk to the end of the hall and then back," she
shook her head.  "Try to make your steps feathery light, like you were
sneaking into your bed after a late night playing cards."
     "I'm not getting paid for this, am I?" he shuffled his feet
nervously.
     "I'll tell your supervisor that I had you do some errands for me,"
Dr. Stewart rolled her eyes in exasperation.  "Just don't make a sound
when you walk.  Shift your weight smoothly."
     The maintenance man did as she instructed, moving to the end of the
hall on quiet feet.  Staying up on his toes and making sure his foot was
firmly on the ground, Larry made no sound as he slowly worked his way
into the distance.  Leslie shuddered as she saw the frobedozer's head
fore-segment inching along to match his progress.  Larry walked back to
Leslie using the same method.  The predator followed every step.
     "WHUMP!"
     "I really do have to move on to the next building, Dr. Stewart,"
Larry frowned at the noisy monster.  "A schedule isn't made to be broken. 
See you tomorrow."
     "Alright Larry," Leslie's eyes and thoughts were on her captive
from Frobe's world.  "If I need your help again, I'll go through
channels."
     The massive head followed Larry and the scurrying bots until he
reached the door.  With one, last feeble sounding, the frobedozer settled
into a motionless state.  Leslie walked to the duroglass.
     "So that was the proximity phenomena," Leslie put a hand on her
cheek and rubbed one eye with the tips of her fingers.  "No wonder you
frustrated my niece.  There's no way you could have followed the
vibrations to track Larry.  I lifted him from the ground and you still
followed him.  Do you really have some sort of psi power?"
     Not having the senses to get information in or out of the cranial
dome, the frobedozer ignored her.
     "One thing's for sure," Leslie sounded more confident than she
felt.  "No frobedozer is going to eat my janitor!"
                   *               *               *
     Leslie stood when she saw David walk into the conference room.  Her
older partner looked positively depressed.
     "Curry, what's the matter?"
     "A setback," he shrugged and waved for her to sit down.  He crashed
into his chair opposite her.  "My theory is dead."
     "So my reports of its death were not greatly exaggerated," she
muttered.
     "What was that?" Curry raised his drooping head and found the
energy to push one eyebrow over the rim of his glasses.  "You didn't
think my vibration theory was correct?"
     "I came to that conclusion last night," Leslie continued to tell
him the story of the attractive Larry Porti.
     "Well, that does match one behavioral theory to my studies," Curry
shrugged and let his shoulders sag again.  "The crystal at the base of
the brain case can't be sensing vibrations.  Something Denise Dolr said
yesterday should have given me a clue to my errant estimates."
     "Tell me, Curry," Leslie wanted to reach across the table and shake
the slim man.  "You're like a suspense movie waiting to happen."
     "Alright," David sat up in his chair and held up a hand to quiet
her.  He opened his portable holographic pad.  "Denise was right.  The
reason that the crystal is positioned directly over the largest bones and
the frobedozer's forelegs is the crystal's enormous weight.  I've look
through the statistics from the physiologists on Frobe's and their data
about the crystal confirms my suspicions."
     "Which is?" Leslie waited a breath before prodding him.
     "The crystal is made of a substance so dense, that it would snap
the heavy cross-bones of the frobedozer's shoulders if the weight was not
also supported by tendons the size of ropes.  These tendons attach to the
inside of the cranium and stretch until only part of the crystal's weight
rests on the skeleton.  Beneath the crystal is a thick membrane that
insulates the bone from the hard edges of the crystal.  Between the
tendons and this membrane, the crystal does not have a firm, direct
connection to the bones.  Therefore, the frobedozer can't detect minute
vibrations on the ground with the mysterious, insulated crystal.
     "All right," she crossed her legs and leaned her chin on an open
hand.  "If the crystal doesn't detect vibrations, just how is it
connected within the brain?"
     "Good question," David tapped a key on his holographic pad, and
three-dimensional frobedozer brain burst into view.  The thick cranium,
that rose like a dome over the front shoulders of the beast's back, had
been peeled away to reveal the complicated arrangement that was the
frobedozer's massive brain.
     "Quite odd," Leslie shook her head.  "But we had the same trouble
with the sperm whale's brain hundreds of years ago.  And it used a sound
blast to stun its prey as well."
     "Yes," Curry lifted his glasses with one hand and rubbed red eyes
with the other.  "But the sperm whale uses its brain as an amplifier and
focusing device for the sound.  Somehow, our frobedozer is using this
brain only for detection.  After that, the creature can stun and run over
its victim."
     "I know you've looked at the physiologist's reports on frobedozer
brain construction," Leslie stuck a finger into the hovering brain. 
"Tell me how this thing is organized."
     "Another mystery, I assure you," Curry took a pointer out of his
pocket and extended it.  "The frobedozer once had eyes, ears and a
sensitive nose, because long nerves from these areas of the front segment
of the head hooked into the brain.  However, as evolution tends to do,
the unused sections of the brain are no longer capable of working."
     Curry pointed to three areas near the front of the brain. 
"Compared to the incredible bulk of the rest of the brain, these are
minuscule."
     "How about the tactile and locomotive centers?" Leslie slid forward
until she was pressed against the edge of the conference table.  "Big
land animals, like earth dinosaurs, seemed to get around with very few
brain cells."
     "Similar to the frobedozer," Curry nodded and tapped a few keys. 
"Look at the areas in yellow, near the rear of the brain case, and near
the rope of nerves that serve as the frobedozer's spinal cord.  It's
locomotive functions and sense of touch are larger than the atrophied
senses, but you see that these voluntary physical controls are small for
this size of brain."
     "How about involuntary?" Leslie put her head low, near the top of
the desk to see into the underside of the brain.  "Respiration,
circulation, temperature controls...."
     "A small area beneath the voluntary," the older doctor rotated the
image so she could see the hidden frobedozer medulla.
     "How about memory and other higher functions?" Leslie began to
wonder what the huge mass surrounding the crystal was actually used for. 
"You're running out of known human divisions pretty quick."
     "Indeed," a twitch of a smile faded as he spoke again.  "Our memory
and thinking areas are in our frontal lobes.  The frobedozer's are at the
top of the brain case, I think.  They ride over the bulk of the lower
brain."
     "A brain this size could definitely signal intelligence," it was
Leslie's turn to raise her eyebrows.  "What do you think Curry?"
     "It may be capable of intelligence now," David shook his head. 
"However, at the time the frobedozer evolved into the blind-deaf-mute
state, I believe it was low on the intelligence scale.  Intelligence
would have demanded that the frobedozer keep those higher senses.  I
think the frobedozers that lost their senses were quite dumb and
solitary, even hostile creatures.  That's a behavioral study I'll leave
to you.  Anyway, with the lack of sensory input, what would an
intelligent frobedozer be thinking, anyway?"
     "I eat, therefore I am?" she shrugged.
     Dr. Curry sat motionless as the holographic brain and stared at
Leslie for long seconds.  Just as she was about to reach across the table
and wave her hand in front of his eyes, David let out a long hiss and a
sort.  More snorts followed and Leslie let out a hearty, heavy person's
laugh.
     "It's good to see you laugh again, Dave," she smiled.
     "Though you're not as funny as you think you are," he regained his
professional mask, "your observation is appropriate.  Let's talk about
the last area of the brain... the taste centers."
     "All of the remaining brain is dedicated to the areas that detect
tastes?" Leslie's mouth gaped open.
     "Amazing, isn't it?" Curry shook his head.  "The human brain is
organized into two hemispheres and has information coordinated between
the left and right side by the corpus callosum.  The frobedozer has no
hemispheres, but it does have a natural physical separation in front of
the crystal."
     "Why would there be a different part of the taste centers that
contain the crystal?" Leslie wrinkled her nose.  "I can see a need for
the hemispheres in a human brain...."
     "The secret lies here," Curry's pointer swirled around a dense
cluster of nerves near the tip of the crystal.  "Our neurochemical
computer models, based on the frobedozer's enormous number of
neurotransmitters, shows that the frobedozer's perception of real taste
from the sensory cells in the mouth and on the tongue are much like ours. 
However, there is that additional bundle of cells that interconnects with
the frobedozer's taste centers.  From what our simulators can gather,
these cells can generate a real 'taste' in the frobedozer's mind.  This
connection leads back to our mysterious crystal structure.  The most
intense concentration of neurons and blood vessels (and least
concentration of glial cells), surrounds the crystal itself.  Whatever
the crystal is doing, its input feeds the frobedozer's sense of taste."
     "Could the taste centers be feeding the crystal?" she snapped her
fingers with the thought.  "Could it be some sophisticated memory
center?"
     "No," Dave nodded in appreciation of her idea.  "All of the
pathways from the crystal lead into the taste centers.  There is no
feedback to the crystal."
     "Is that similar to our senses in any way?" Dr. Stewart tucked the
snapping fingers back under her chin.
     "You can't vibrate your eardrums voluntarily," his lips curled
slightly.  "If you could, you could give yourself the sensation of sound
by manipulating the sensory device."
     Leslie's eyes narrowed in intense concentration for a moment. 
"Guess you're right.  So the crystal may simulate tastes of some sort. 
Go on."
     "Not much more to tell," David stood and gathered up his
holographic plate.  "That thoroughly shoots down the vibration theory, so
I'm back to square one.  I have called in some help to study the
frobedozer's brain, though.  I'm glad Paul thought to send us one of the
mysterious crystals from a dead frobedozer.  Paul's team did an excellent
job in documenting the anatomical studies, but the real McCoy might give
me other clues."
     "Good Luck"
     Curry nodded and stalked off in his long, loping stride.  Leslie
pushed her own weight out of her chair and looked at her watch.
     "Time to feed the monster."
                   *               *               *
     Denise Dolr walked in front of the floating palette to stay up-wind
of the smelly, synthetic pessimist meat.  She saw Leslie staring at the
giant predator and guided the frobedozer's dinner to sit next to the
duroglass.  After two weeks of changing the monster's dinner schedule,
the architect doubted that Leslie was making any progress.
     "You wanted to have the food sit out here, doctor?" Denise tossed
her light hair back over her shoulder.  "What do you hope to find out? 
How bad this stuff smells?"
     "Are you sure this was the food that would be fed to the frobedozer
today?" Leslie ignored the comment and pointed to the half-ton meal.
     "Yes."
     "I wanted to see if the frobedozer could detect its next meal
through the duroglass," Leslie looked nervously at the shorter, skinny
architect.
     "What makes you think it could do that in the first place?" Denise
shook her head.
     Leslie thought of Larry Porti and the frobedozer's strange
reaction.  The proximity phenomena, as her niece had named it, was
beginning to frighten Leslie, but she wasn't sure if the frobedozer
actually had any interest in eating Larry.  Still, if the frobedozer
detected its meals through the glass, Larry would need to be kept away
from the predator.  Last night, the soundings reached nearly 100
decibels, and the frobedozer actually began to drip saliva through its
serrated front teeth.  Porti didn't seem to notice as he checked the work
of the robots, but Leslie hadn't slept all night.
     "Just a hint," Leslie forced a trembling smile onto her lips. 
"Let's wait a few minutes until you put it into the feeding mechanism."
     Sidling away from the smelly cart, Denise took up watch on the
other side of the long cage.  Leslie, who had smelled far worse in her
years in the field, stared at the frobedozer intently.  It didn't move. 
It didn't sound.  It didn't drool.  Fifteen minutes of nothing.
     "Damn!"
     "It's time to feed the frobedozer, doctor," Denise was already
punching buttons that told the palette to go to the mechanized feeder. 
She ignored an angry look from the doctor and guided the palette to the
chamber to the right of the frobedozer cage.  The familiar cranking and
banging that was the feeding system began, and Leslie suddenly rushed to
the duroglass and pressed both hands against the unyielding surface.
     "What is it?" the architect was beside the doctor in an instant.
     "No sounding!" Leslie shook her head in confusion.  "It gives a
full 110 decibel sounding when the device begins the feeding process."
     The pessimist meat slid into the shiny bowl, but the frobedozer
didn't budge.  Denise, her fingers hovering above the pad of the remote,
suddenly frowned.
     "Dr. Stewart," she pointed to the bowl.  "Something might be wrong
with that food.  I'm going to switch it out and give the frobedozer
tomorrow's meal."
     Denise commanded a second palette to be brought from the pessimist
warehouse.  Within a minute, another huge helping of the smelly meat
floated into the hall.  The frobedozer's head swung around, and the jaws
opened partway.
     "Whump."
     "How can you do that?" Leslie slapped her hand against the
duroglass.  "There is no way you can tell the food is out here!"
     "Should I give it this meal, doctor?" Denise ignored the outburst. 
After seeing Leslie nod, Denise tapped out the necessary commands.  The
bowl slid back into the wall, the palette glided to the chamber beside
the cage, and the machinery began to rumble once more.  Immediately, the
frobedozer was on its feet, jaws widening to their greatest angle. 
Leslie and Denise immediately covered their ears.
     "WHUMP!"
     The leviathan plodded ahead and snapped at the new load of meat
that had appeared in the bowl.  Leslie turned to Denise.
     "Find out what made the first parcel of food different from this
one," Leslie commanded.  "There had to be some reason why the frobedozer
rejected it."
     "Even if I find a difference, you still don't know how the
frobedozer can recognize the difference," Denise complained.  "I might
have to spend an entire day figuring that out."
     "Just do it," Leslie's expression changed to fright suddenly. 
Larry Porti and his parade of robots had just entered the far side of the
hall.  "Look, I've been hard on you, but humor me.  I'm sure it's an
important clue to the way the frobedozer finds its food.  We may be
getting close to some sort of answer."
     "Fat chance," Denise spun and stomped off to look into the rejected
meal.
     The frobedozer had finished its meat and pressed its head into the
corner of the wall and duroglass.  When Larry was only twenty yards away,
the great jaws parted and suddenly slammed shut.
     "Whump."
     "Dr. Stewart," Larry called and waved.  "Can you make your monster
stop that?  It's starting to hurt my ears.  I'll probably go deaf."
     "No, you won't Larry," she tried to comfort him, but all levity had
drained from her.  "I can't do much with this frobedozer, I'm afraid."
     "Must have been spoiled as a pup," Larry's thumb pointed back to
the widening jaws.  "Probably does this all night, huh?"
     "Whump!"
     "Actually Larry..." she began, but stopped suddenly as she saw Dr.
Curry's reflection in the duroglass.  She turned to see a lined,
concerned face.  "Dave?"
     "Mr. Porti," David gave a nervous glance at the pointing
frobedozer.  He stepped between Leslie and the young man.  "When was the
last time you took a vacation?"
     "Can't remember, doctor," Larry scratched his head to help dig
through his memory.  "I don't need a lot of time off.  Everyone will call
me lazy."
     "I've just spoken to your shift foreman, and he has agreed with
me," Dr. Curry stepped closer to make the younger man fidget nervously. 
"You've been an excellent worker, but you do need a break.  Take a week's
vacation, starting now."
     "I'd rather stay sir," Larry shook his head but couldn't look at
the thick glasses.  "Lots to do, you know.  I don't want anything to go
wrong."
     "You like to fish, I'm told," Curry tried a different approach.  "I
just got a state permit today.  It's all yours, if you want it.  Keep it
for the whole week."
     Larry's eyes widened as he saw the rare pass.  "That's one of the
ones picked by lottery!  A one-in-a-hundred for Norris Lake!"
     "Freshly stocked, too, I hear," Curry waved it hypnotically.  "You
have to promise me to bring it back.  I'm going there later this month."
     "Yea, sure," the young man's face suddenly went from gleeful to
downcast.  "Doctor, why waste this on me.  My luck's terrible in fishing. 
I couldn't catch a good filet at the grocery store."
     "Whump!"
     "You're luck's just changed," Curry, glancing at the frobedozer,
pressed the glittering plastic into Larry's palm.  "Have a great time."
     "Thanks," Larry's face cracked into an unusual grin, and he ran for
the exit, "although it's gonna rain."
     "I thought he was going to kiss your ring," Leslie moved around
Curry.  "Hey!"
     David's long fingers bit into Leslie's left arm, and she stopped
her imminent complaint.  Curry's eyes, large in the glasses, showed a
look she had not seen since her youth: he was scared witless.
     "We have to talk about the frobedozer right now," again, his eyes
flicked to the now-motionless mountain of predator.  "My latest theory
needs to be matched to your behavioral studies.  I may have the answer we
didn't want to find."
     "Does it hunt by psi power?" Leslie let him pull her away from the
duroglass.
     "Worse," Curry shuddered and pulled harder.  "Far worse."
     "Dr. Stewart.  Dr. Curry," Denise was running after them.  She slid
to a stop on the polished floor.  "I did find a difference in the meat
that the frobedozer rejected.  It's a silly thing, but you can decide for
yourself."
     Leslie held up a hand before Denise could ramble on and explained
the strange experiment to Curry.
     "So what is the little difference?" Leslie turned back to the
impatient architect.
     "The food that the frobedozer rejected was really tomorrow's meal,"
Denise continued.  "I know you asked for us to bring out today's food
first, but my assistant misunderstood what..."
     "What did the frobedozer accept, then?" Curry was standing over
Denise in an instant, his voice rising to a shrill level.
     "It ate today's ration," the youth stood her ground.  "The second
palette contained the right meal."
     "My God," David's shoulders slumped.  "My God!"
     "Curry, for heaven's sake," Leslie pried his fingers from her arm
and felt his pulse.  "Your heart's racing.  Calm down."
     "Ms. Dolr," David used his freed right hand to point at her.  "I
want this entire building to be off limits.  Everyone must get my
permission to come in here.  You will feed the frobedozer from your
control center by remote only.  Am I clear?"
     "Certainly," Denise said haltingly.  "Can I ask why?"
     "No," Curry spun, grabbed Leslie once more and ran for the exit. 
Despite her greater weight, she didn't seem to slow the older man down.
                   *               *               *
     "I'm old, I'm frightened and I'm about to have a heart attack,"
Curry's hands shook as they lifted the large mug, "and you're giving me
coffee.  How about a cigarette and some chocolate to further destroy my
health?"
     "At least you've calmed down a little," Leslie let out a short
laugh and poured herself a smaller cup of the steaming liquid.  The tiny
conference room in the administration building had been a favorite hide-
out because it had one of the better coffee makers at Xo.
     "I do feel better," Curry stared at the hologram/monitor to see
that the frobedozer was still quietly poised in its cage.  "I don't know
if what I have to say is going to make sense.  It sure does in my head,
but I really hope that your behavioral observations prove that I'm
wrong."
     "Let's hear it," Leslie sat down across the round table from him. 
"I still don't have a clue as to how it hunts."
     "You know I've been concentrating on that cone-shaped crystal at
the base of the frobedozer's brain," he took a shaky sip.  "Dr. Tally,
the neurophysiologist who was dying to work on this project, offered to
construct living brain tissue around the sample crystal that Paul sent
from Frobe's.  Using the detailed physiological data that Paul recorded,
Tally was able to bathe the crystal in the correct balance of frobedozer
neurons and glial cells.  Then he encased the living tissue into an
enormous dendrite net and fed the records of the firing frobedozer axons
into his supercomputer.  After the cells matured in a nutrient tank, the
crystal began to trigger the dendrites on the frobedozer cells and send
images through Tally's dendrite net.  The flood of data took down his
communications link to the supercomputer at least a dozen times."
     "So what did this crystal tell him?" Leslie tried to guide Curry
back on track.  She tested her coffee cup with her hand and decided it
was still too hot.
     "Nothing for the first week," Curry set his cup down.  "There were
so many axons firing each second that the jumble of data made no sense. 
Tally suggested putting the crystal in a frobedozer-type environment.  He
wanted to have the crystal placed in a remote site without so much
equipment around."
     "So that's where you've been the last two weeks," Leslie snapped
her fingers.  "The shed, right?"
     "That was the obvious place," Curry nodded, but frowned at her
slang reference.  "The isolation chamber is nearly a mile from here and
has an excellent data link to our systems.  Once we placed the nutrient
tank in the isolation chamber and returned here, the crystal's chaotic
datastorm subsided.  Now, it only had occasional firings of the axons
near the base of the cone-shaped object.  Since the majority of the
crystal's surface was not triggering dendrites in the surrounding brain
tissue, Tally's supercomputer could narrow down and identify the isolated
images.  We soon learned that these images were generated by animals that
passed by the shed.  Using the cameras on the outside of the shed, we
watched a deer pass by.  The side of the crystal that faced the deer
suddenly came to life with a flood of neurotransmitters and electrical
pulses.  Later, when another deer passed by, the supercomputer used the
learned pattern from the dendrite net to point the shed's cameras in the
direction of the deer."
     "You mean that the crystal tells the frobedozer the direction of
the pessimists?" Leslie frowned.  "You think that's the way the
frobedozer knows the direction to charge?"
     "Yes," Curry's eyes glittered in fear and excitement.  "Using the
crystal's messages, the frobedozer has a sense of taste that's
directional.  The best we can tell, the presence of food will activate
the sensory crystal and let the frobedozer 'taste' the distant prey. 
It's normal memories match the crystal's impulses to previously eaten
pessimists."
     "It's like me imagining a spaghetti and meatball dinner," Leslie
smacked her lips as her mouth watered.  "I can almost taste it now."
     "An excellent example," David pulled his coffee cup closer.  "But
the frobedozer doesn't imagine the taste, the crystal's signal is
converted into a real taste within it's mind."
     "So tell me about the top portion of the crystal," she waved a
hand.  "Have you figured out what that does?"
     "That's the frightening part," Curry muttered and lowered his eyes. 
"We sent one of our interns out to the site to help test Tally's
theories.  As you can imagine, those deer didn't seem to want to run near
the crystal on schedule.  When our intern arrived, a new image appeared
at the base of the cone.  It was, as you can guess, his presence as seen
by the crystal.  However, near the apex of the crystal, an identical but
weaker series of brain signals appeared.  Tally's dendrite net confirmed
the accuracy of the image at the base by focusing cameras on the intern,
but we couldn't figure out why the second series of impulses appeared at
the top of the crystal."
     "Did the image near the apex point at the intern as well?" Leslie
guessed.
     "No," Curry shook his head.  "Once the weaker impulses at the apex
appeared, they steadily moved down the side of the crystal and became
stronger.  Our intern moved all over the site, and his image at the base
moved with him.  Still, the second series of axon firings moved toward
the base, down the dendrite net.  Tally continued to test the base image
while recording the progress of the dropping and strengthening second
image.  At last, Tally told the intern to enter the shed and touch the
sensor on the front of the case.  This was linked into the dendrite net
as well, somewhat simulating the frobedozer's real tactile sense.  When
he did this, the first and second images met at the same point on the
base of the crystal and disappeared."
     "Strange," Leslie used her behavioral background to try to tie the
events together.  "What did Tally conclude from all of this?"
     "We nearly had to revive Tally as he reviewed his supercomputer's
data on the event," David shivered.  "He told the intern to leave the
shed and reenter without telling the scientists here.  Tally cut all
communications links with the intern as he monitored the re-appeared
double images within the crystal.  When the two images met at the base
once more, Tally reopened communications and asked the intern if he had
touched the sensor.  As Tally guessed, the intern responded 'yes.'"
     "But that doesn't make sense," Leslie held out both hands.
     "Listen to this last part," Curry grabbed her left hand in his firm
grip.  "The image at the bottom of the crystal shows a bearing of the
prey.  It has a 360 degree surface to point the frobedozer in the right
direction.  The second image starts near the apex, and drops down the
side at a constant rate.  It is predicting contact with the prey.  All of
this information links back to the frobedozer's sense of taste."
     "You mean to tell me that the frobedozer can taste what it's going
to eat in the future?" Leslie thought she must have understood.  "It
charges in the direction of it's next meal?"
     "That sums it up," Curry blinked.
     "There must be some limitations to the frobedozer's foresight,"
Leslie complained.  "I can't believe you fell for this theory so easily."
     "I didn't," David sat up straighter to defend his professional
pride.  "I asked Tally hundreds of questions.  I stared to shake when he
said one word.  I asked how the crystal and brain might be able to detect
a potential meal.  Tally said the most important factor in detecting the
future with this crystal is 'proximity.'"
     Leslie's eyes went wide.  "As in proximity phenomena."
     "Exactly," Curry nodded.  "When an Earth predator picks up a scent,
it knows the prey is nearby and upwind.  Using the crystal, the
frobedozer's brain can get the same kind of clues: its prey is nearby in
the present.  But the frobedozer asks, 'Look into the future and see if I
eat that pessimist sometime.'  The crystal has a directional nature, so
the frobedozer can tell the direction of its prey.  With our predator,
the proximity is not only a physical one but also one in time.  The
closer in time the frobedozer gets to eating its prey, the greater the
second signal in the crystal.  Therefore, the more clear the taste in the
frobedozer's mind."
     "So Tally suggested that Mary's proximity phenomena is a prediction
by the frobedozer that it will eat the pessimist in the future?" Leslie
now felt a chill.  "What about Larry Porti?  Our frobedozer was aiming at
him."
     "That's why I was so anxious to get him away from the frobedozer,"
Curry kept both hands around the cup to keep them from shaking.  "The
vacation takes him outside of the proximity.  Norris Lake is 90 miles
away."
     "OK," Leslie sighed and relaxed slightly.  "Let me match a few
behavioral items to your theory.  When a frobedozer hunts, it knows that
the time has arrived and the direction its prey is in.  It begins
sounding to freeze the pessimist and charges in that direction.  As the
sounding continues, the frobedozer bears down on the prey and finally
runs it over.  Feeling contact, the predator knows it's time to feed. 
Today, I tested the sounding and feeding process.  When the frobedozer
was offered tomorrow's palette of food, it showed no interest, but when
Denise substituted the correct meal, the frobedozer sounded when the food
was nearby.  When the frobedozer first noticed Larry, it was a softer,
lazy type of sounding.  Recently, the soundings have become far louder,
approaching the decibel level the frobedozer uses during a charge.  That
means the frobedozer was about to try to eat Larry."
     Curry shivered and nodded.  "But our frobedozer is a female, and as
your niece observed, only 80% of the proximity phenomena soundings led to
kills.  Larry should be glad we didn't bring back a bull."
     "My niece also said that if a female didn't kill the pessimist
after a proximity phenomena," Leslie reminded him, "another frobedozer
did."
     "The pure beauty of my plan to save Mr. Porti," Curry nodded. 
"There are no other frobedozers on the planet."
     "But there is another crystal with living brain tissue," Leslie
clapped at the idea.  "Should we have Larry touch the sensor pad on
Tally's construction?"
     Curry quickly referred to Xo's security computer.  Porti had
already left.
     "We must have Larry do that when he returns," David seemed to relax
at Leslie's suggestion.  "That fulfills the female frobedozer's
prophecy."
     "Sending Larry away would have worked for a male frobedozer,
right?" Leslie argued.  "We could have sent Porti to Europe, and the
prediction couldn't come true."
     "That depends on your belief in the contents of the future itself,"
Curry frowned.  "There are some who would argue that what must happen in
the future will happen.  In other words, if the frobedozer is matching
the future sensations of taste to the potential prey around it, then it
must eat the prey in the future."
     "Give me an example," Leslie wrinkled her nose.
     "I'm a frobedozer," David pointed to his chest.  "Let's say you're
a pessimist.  Using the direction from the base of my crystal and the
presence of the second image, I sound in your direction in a proximity
phenomena.  Now, that means that I have tasted the second image in my
crystal and matched it to the taste of pessimist meat in my memory. 
Since I have no other senses, there is no other way for me to detect your
presence.  Therefore, I must have eaten you in the future.  If I did not,
then I would not have had a second image."
     "I see why you were so worried about Porti, Dave," Leslie reached
across the table and patted his hand.  "Where a male frobedozer is
concerned, your theory is airtight.  I'm glad Mary sent us a female."
     "I'm still bothered by one question, though," David lowed his eyes
to stare at the polished top of the table.  "If the female frobedozer
doesn't eat the pessimist (or Larry), how does it detect the future taste
in the first place?  I know that some other frobedozer gets the kill on
Frobe's planet, but it doesn't make sense.  A frobedozer shouldn't be
able to sense what it won't taste in the future."
     The scientists sat quietly and sipped at the coffee.
     "No sense in waiting up all night for the answer," Leslie noticed
that Curry's disappearing adrenalin left him sleepy.  "The question will
still be here in the morning.  Can I drive you home?"
     "I can tell my AI to take me home far better than you can," David
chuckled.  "I'm amazed you can get your car to take you anywhere."
     "I got the idiot-proof model," Leslie stood motioned for Curry to
follow.  "Hit one button, and it takes me home."
                   *               *               *
     Burt the security guard hobbled along the long hall of the
administration building.  He was past the traditional retirement age, but
this night job suited him just fine.  Patting the gun on his belt and
looking down at the glimmer of his badge, Burt fancied himself the most
important member of the staff.  He was authorized to go anywhere in the
complex.  He could stop or question any of the scientists.  He could take
lunch any time he wanted.  Being here alone at night, Burt was the boss.
     "It's so easy, too," Burt talked out loud as a third shift employee
does.  "We don't get many trespassers around here anymore."
     Xo had displayed a "Trespassers will be eaten" sign many years ago. 
The lawyers made the staff take the sign down after a trespasser was
eaten.
     Burt walked over to the door of the west wing of Xo and aimed his
flashlight through the window.  "This is the containment hall.  The
second shift guard told me that this room was off limits until further
notice.  That means off limits to everyone but security.  I'd better
check to make sure all doors are secure."
     The old man opened the door and entered the unlit chamber that
housed the exotic alien predators.  Burt's flashlight remained on the
floor in front of him to make sure there was nothing in his path.  The
room was pitch black to let the beasts believe it was night time.  Since
there were no nocturnal hunters in this wing, the scientists had told
security not to shine the flashlights into the cages.  Scientists worried
about the weirdest things.
     "Who's there?" Burt's beam kept to the floor but swung around to
his right.  The guard had heard a high-pitched sigh followed by a lower,
moaning sound.  Another sigh convinced Burt that it was time to draw his
gun.  "I'm warning you, identify yourself at once!"
     Two more low notes, followed by a long, high whine.  The final
sound could only be a groan of agony.
     "Are you hurt?" Burt began to walk to the sounds near the last cage
on the right.  Burt jumped as another whine burst to life and trailed
into an echo.  He ignored the regulation about his flashlight and aimed
it at the sound in the last cage.  At once, Burt saw a glimmering thing
scurry across the glass surface of the cage.  "What the hell...."
     Moving fast for his age, Burt got close and followed the moving
object.  It whined at him as it reached the bottom of the duroglass cage. 
He let out a sigh of relief as he angled his flashlight to one side. 
"It's just a crack in the glass.  The crack made the moaning and whining
sounds."
     Burt moved the beam of the light around the edge of the glass and
saw a network of intertwined cracks.  The glass moaned again as more
cracks raced to the frame of the wall.  Burt moved to the center of the
barrier and looked for the predator that lived in the cage.
     "You have to be in here!" Burt complained as the beam swung left
and right.  "You're huge."
     The flashlight illuminated one pedestal-leg near the back of the
cage.  Watching it's bands of muscle quiver in some titanic effort, Burt
shook his head.  "Where's the rest of you?"
     With the creaks and moans suddenly becoming more tormented, Burt
shined the light higher on the glass wall, approximately ten feet above
his head.  There, at the center of a tangled web of cracks, was the chest
of the gigantic frobedozer.  Its two forelegs dangled three feet from the
ground.  Clearly, all of the beast's weight was on the wall.
     "Hey, settle down in there," Burt overcame the initial shock of
seeing the frobedozer suspended in the cage.  "We're gonna have to buy a
new piece of glass now."
     With the shriek of a thousand lost souls, the duroglass reached its
incredible shatter point.  The barrier buckled out at the center, but the
bonded plastics kept the glass in a sheet.  In the face of the wave of
rolling, tumbling wall, Burt fell to the floor.  Though some people
survived a falling sheet of duroglass because the sheet curled as it
fell, Burt wasn't so lucky.  An 18 ton predator stepped out of the cage
and pressed the glass flat.
                   *               *               *
     Larry looked out at the still waters of Lake Troy and smiled at the
serenity of nature.  Here, the noise and chaos of civilizations was kept
away from the small game, deer, bears, fowl and... fish.
     "Top of the food chain and master of the environment," Larry took
his lucky fishing pole from his army-green tent.  "Tomorrow, I will live
off the land like my ancestors did.  Well, the way I fish, I'll probably
starve."
     All thanks to Dr. Curry's wonderful fishing pass.  Shrinking with
the passing years, the game reserves and national parks had begun to
ration their resources to the hunters and fishermen.  Curry's pass had
been for Norris lake, a resort among fishing fanatics.  The rating on the
card had been class A which let the bearer choose any of the lesser game
reserves.  Norris didn't have any space available for 3 days, so Larry
decided to spend the first days of his vacation at Troy.  It had only
taken him ten minutes to get from work to this reserve, and the distant
lights of Xo glittered on the hill overlooking the lake.
     "I'm too excited to sleep," Larry turned off his lamp and clamped
headphones over his ears.  "My music ought to calm me down."
     As Larry turned the volume up, he closed his eyes and laid back on
his sleeping bag.  After a couple of songs, Larry began to frown at the
poor reception of his radio.
     "Probably broke already," Larry took off the phones and look for
the cause of the booming noise that kept interrupting the tunes.  Larry
dropped the headset as he heard the noise again.
     "WHUMP!"
     "What is going on?" Porti was on his feet and grabbing for his
flashlight in the backpack.  "That noisy monster must have got out of its
cage.  I'm sure they'll blame me for it, so I better find it and report
in."
     Larry heard another sounding and jogged up the path to the parking
lot.  He broke from the cover of the wood and saw the frobedozer moving
slowly through the line of cars.  The light, composite bodies of the
modern, hovering cars splintered and flattened as the alien beast trod on
them.  The frobedozer's chest pushed a pile of wreckage before it, and
the forward segment of the head extended over the junk, searching for the
physical contact with its prey.  With the destructive predator heading
right for him, Larry decided it would be good if he moved off of the path
and got out of its way.  The maintenance man knew the frobedozer wasn't
fast, so he walked to the parking spaces to the right of the beast.  When
Larry was parallel to the predator's path, the giant slowed and turned
its head to aim at the man.  Its jaws widened to reveal rows of teeth;
its throat opened to gasp in a huge breath.  Porti realized what was
about to happen, but he forgot to put his hands over his ears.
     "WHUMP!!!!"
     The blast of the 110 decibel sound nearly knocked him from his
feet, and he turned to run away from the noise.  Disoriented from the
attack, he took two steps before stumbling over the curb and sprawling
into the cinders of the path.  With pounding feet that shook the
pavement, the frobedozer started its charge.
     Larry sat up and saw the lumbering beast coming towards him.  He
looked for his flashlight, but saw it had rolled back across the lot. 
Pushing the last two cars out of its way, the frobedozer was a mere
twenty feet from him.  Finally realizing that the predator was after him
alone, Porti jumped to his feet and ran for the woods.  Though panic had
guided Porti's steps, the slim man made the best choice by ignoring the
path and heading for the crowded line of trees.  After passing a few rows
of firs, Larry tripped again and tumbled into the base of a tree.  The
looming shadow of the frobedozer reached the edge of the wood and two
smaller firs bent back with the sudden collision.  The beast's head poked
through the trees, and with widening jaws, aimed in the direction of the
future taste.
     "WHUMP!!!!"
     With an incoherent yell, Larry jumped to his feet and started to
run again, only to hit another tree head on.  Falling back to the earth,
he put his hands to his head.  A trickle of moisture spread between the
fingers of his right hand.  The sound of a snapping fir brought him back
to his senses.  Without looking at the monster's progress, Porti jumped
to his feet and began feeling his way through the darkened pillars of the
wood.  Again, Larry felt the pounding of huge feet as he picked his way
through the trees.  For an eternity, he met tree after tree, and the
steady shaking of the earth threatened to knock him from his feet. 
Suddenly, Larry broke clear of the trees and stumbled forward into his
own camp.  The light of a crescent moon barely illuminated his view to
the lake, but the line of trees was a black wall of shadow.  The shaking
stopped.
     Larry's eyes widened in an effort to see the frobedozer, but the
woods didn't betray the animal.  Larry felt the edge of his sleeping bag
and dragged his lantern to him with a trembling hand.  He hesitated
before turning the beam on, because his primal instincts had come from
avoiding sighted predators.  Remembering that the frobedozer was blind,
Larry took a deep breath and held the lamp aloft.  He switched on the
beam and saw the mountainous maw of the frobedozer opened before him. 
The lantern fell as the jaws slammed shut.
     "WHUMP!!!!"
     For a last time, Larry stood and ran a few steps.  Again he fell at
the base of a tree as the rumbling steps neared.  With a crash that shook
the world and tore nearby roots from the ground, the frobedozer pushed
the tree over and stood astride the man.  Larry saw the jaws of the beast
descending out of the starry background.
                   *               *               *
     As a behavioral scientist, Leslie Stewart had been used to calls in
the middle of the night.  Many predators were nocturnal in nature, and
when one of the interns saw something strange, she wanted to know.  This
call in the night was about a nocturnal hunter doing something strange.
     "What?" Leslie hit a button that activated a speaker phone and
didn't require her to match a handset to her ear.
     "It's Curry," it was the rushed, dry voice of her partner.  "Are
you sitting down?"
     She sat up instantly, eyes wide.  "What's the matter, Dave?"     
     "The frobedozer broke out of its cage and escaped," Dave said the
words quickly and hatefully.  "It killed Burt when the duroglass broke."
     "Oh no," Leslie fell back into her bed and pinched her eyes against
tears.  Burt was one of the night guards she knew well.  The old guy had
been a genuine gentleman with a family as big as a prairie town.
     "That's not all," Curry continued after listening for a response. 
"Remember the Agreement?"
     "Don't tell me," anger began to replace her sadness.  The Agreement
was a deal between the resort town at Troy Lake.  When Xo was being
built, the local government tried to have it shut down.  Alien predators
anywhere near a nature retreat would have to hurt business.  It contrast,
the government argued that the center would bring in tourists by the
thousands.  To keep the picketers away, the two sides struck the
Agreement: if a predator escaped the grounds of Xo, the National Guard
would hunt it down and kill it.
     "The frobedozer's dead," Curry told her softly.  "The soldiers
decided not to shoot it with small arms but called in a hover tank
instead.  The frobedozer sat motionless next to the lake.  It didn't know
enough to hide in the trees.
     "Do you think this has anything to do with the proximity
phenomena?"  Leslie swung her legs out of bed and looked for the most
recently discarded clothes.  "Was it trying to find Larry?"
     Curry was silent.  Leslie waited until the silence worked at her
stomach and twisted it into a knot.
     "David!"
     "When I mentioned the possibility to the police a moment ago,"
David was now forcing the words from his throat, "they did a location
search on Larry.  He entered Troy Park just after nightfall using the
pass I had given him."
     "He was supposed to go to Norris Lake," Leslie mumbled as her hands
shook.  She stood suddenly and blinked in the near-darkness of her room. 
"Oh God, I know why your calling me."
     "Yes," Curry's voice turned apologetic.  "I'm in my car now and
will be at your apartment in 5 minutes.  The police have called in the
coroner, and they will meet us at the frobedozer's body.  They want us to
help them cut the animal open and see if Larry's body is inside."
     "See you in a minute," Leslie hit the disconnect as the knot in her
stomach tightened.  She said a prayer for Burt and Larry Porti.
                   *               *               *
     "Leslie, this is Colonel Grav," David led her across the meadow to
the tall form.
     "I was angry when I was told one of your animals was on the loose,"
Grav looked down at the two with cutting eyes.  His camouflaged uniform
made the rest of his body blend in with the distant, murky tree line. 
"Then I saw the thing and understood.  Gods, what a monster this thing
was."
     "Let's go," Leslie walked around the Guard commander and headed for
the eighteen ton body bathed in a light from portable floods.  "Let's get
this over with."
     "What kind of tools will you need to cut it open?" Grav walked next
to Curry as Leslie moved ahead.
     She ignored Curry's grizzly details and passed a row of wide-eyed
soldiers.  Her frobedozer lay at the center of the spotlights, turned
over on one front shoulder with its forelegs near the shore of Troy Lake. 
The dome on its back rested on a small hill behind the beast, and the
fore segment of the head rested upside down near its extended front legs. 
An enormous hole at the left front shoulder joint showed where the shell
had struck the frobedozer.  Climbing up on one of the legs, Leslie held
her breath against the smell of the wound and peered into the
frobedozer's body.  The protective armor plates on the beast had been no
match for the explosive shell.  Lower on the body, Leslie saw a wound
where an earth animal's stomach might have been.  It looked like the army
guys had already tried to cut open the predator to find Larry's body. 
They didn't know that the frobedozer stomach was nearer the thoracic
cavity, rather than the abdominal.  Leslie walked around to the front of
the titan to look at the frobedozer's maw.  After looking inside of the
jaws and examining the fur and lips around the mouth, Leslie let out a
short yell.  The soldiers turned, guns ready, and Curry ran to her side
immediately.
     "What is it, doctor?" Curry used the formal in earshot of the
colonel.
     Leslie didn't answer but grabbed the flashlight from Grav's hand
and ran off into the darkness.
     "Dr. Stewart..." Grav looked more than a little irritated at losing
the light.
     "Don't question it," Curry beckoned him to follow.  "She's got an
idea."
     Grav got his hands on two more flashlights and handed one to Curry. 
As soon as the older doctor took it, he fell to the ground.  Grav picked
the thin man up and shined his light on the object that had tripped
Curry.  The frobedozer's deep footprint was the culprit.  Curry pointed
to Leslie's light as it disappeared into the woods.
     "She's following its footsteps," David struggled to keep up with
Grav.
     Leslie had tracked predatory pond spiders that left only a hint of
mucus on the rippling waves of water.  The frobedozer was nowhere near as
subtle or difficult as it carved a path of broken limbs, overturned
saplings and dented earth.  In a few minutes, Leslie climbed over an
uprooted tree and saw a small encampment on the shore of Lake Troy. 
Shining the flashlight around the maze of frobedozer footfall, she saw a
sleeping bag near the crushed tangle of a tent.  Larry Porti slept
peacefully beneath the stars.
     "Larry!" Leslie screamed and caused the drowsy man to try to stand
up in the zippered bag.  He fell back to the ground as his legs were
caught in the tangle.  Leslie ran to his side and bent down to hug him.
     "I knew this wasn't going to be my night," the air whistled out of
his lungs with her ferocious embrace.  "I knew I wouldn't get a good
night's sleep."
     "Thank heaven," Curry panted heavily as Grav dragged him into the
camp.  "That's Larry Porti, colonel."
     "Tell me what happened, Larry," Leslie fumbled with the nearby
lantern until the young man helped her turn it on.  "We thought the
frobedozer had eaten you!"
     "Nope," Larry shrugged as if he had been chased by a small dog. 
"Just scared me a bit.  Followed me for a quarter mile.  Knocked down the
tree.  I was sure it was gonna step on me when it left."
     "Didn't it even try to bite you?" Leslie sat on her knees as the
young man tried to untangle his sleeping bag.
     "It did stick out its tongue and touch my face once," Larry kicked
one foot repeatedly to straighten the bag.
     Leslie reached for Larry's forehead and brushed back his hairline. 
There was a butterfly bandage over a split in his scalp.
     "You were bleeding when the frobedozer licked you?" she smiled
widely and clapped.  "That's wonderful!"
     "Not too wonderful," Porti frowned.  "I hugged a tree pretty hard."
     "I see, Dr. Stewart," Curry kept his professional voice but put his
hand on her shoulder and squeezed excitedly.  "The frobedozer didn't need
to eat all of Larry to fulfill its prophecy.  All it needed to do was
taste the target of a charge.  That matched the taste sensation the
frobedozer got during the proximity phenomena."
     Larry's eyes dulled as the doctors seemed to be ready to launch
into one of their lengthy technical discussions.
     "Can I get back to sleep please?"  Larry collapsed back to the
ground and pointed at the lantern.  "Can you shut that off when you go?"
     "You're going to stay?" Leslie said in surprise and Curry's
eyebrows jumped over his glasses.
     "Fishing is the best therapy," Larry closed his eyes.  "Even if I
probably won't catch anything."
     As Leslie turned out the light and stood up, Grav led the doctors
back through the wood to the frobedozer's body.
     "We'll guard the body until you can dispose of it," Grav told them. 
"Don't take more than a few hours or we'll do it ourselves."
     One of Grav's lieutenants saw their approach and carried a
holographic cube to the commander.  Grav passed it to Curry.
     "Here's a panoramic recording of the frobedozer's body," Grav
pointed to the glimmering cube.  "Thought we'd save you some time and
make you a copy of ours."
     "Thanks colonel," Curry tucked the cube in his pocket.  "Xo's
administration will contact you directly about the cleanup."
     Grav nodded and Curry led Leslie back to the car.
     "How did you know Larry was alive?" David's curiosity got the
better of him.
     "The muzzle of the frobedozer had no blood or flesh on it," she
stepped back onto the pavement next to Curry's car.  "The films of the
frobedozer showed me that having no sense of smell or sight leads to a
really messy meal.  I would have seen lots of human blood if it had
caught Larry."
     "Simple and accurate observation," Curry commented.
     "I won't be able to get back to sleep," Leslie glanced at her
watch.  "It's 2 AM already.  Want to review some frobedozer data from
Mary... or do the reports on the escape?"
     "No reports now," David cringed at the thought.  "I'll watch your
niece's recordings with you."
     In ten minutes, they were back in the holographic observation room,
and Leslie beat Curry to the control remote.  She took her favorite arm
chair while Curry took his.
     "Don't worry.  I'll use the AI," Leslie didn't want to joke around
after the night's tragedy.  "Where do you want to start, Dave?"
     "We know how the frobedozer hunts now," Curry scratched his arm as
he thought.  "How about reproduction?"
      Leslie commanded the AI, and the display floor turned into Frobe's
flat plain.  The sea of yellow grass was split by the receding form of a
hungry frobedozer.  Mary ran in the front center of the image, and her
right arm disappeared as it reached out of the shot.  She looked like she
was helping Paul carry the recording gear.
     "Something strange is going on," Mary turned back to the camera. 
"We've got two frobedozers charging at the same time.  I can hear the
soundings of the other one, and it is definitely getting closer.  There
it is!"
     Thankfully, Paul shut off the image recorder before aiming at the
other beast and turning it on again.  There was nothing worse than
watching a three dimensional, life-like image that suddenly spun out of
control.  The rambling form of a second frobedozer approached the same
herd of pessimists.  Both beasts sounded a few seconds apart, and the
herd thinned to only a few pessimists.
     "We want to get nearer to their target before the two frobedozer
fight over that pessimist," Mary panted as she came into view.  "We're
going to shut down the camera and run like hell!"
     An instant later, her gasping breath barely let out her words. 
"OK, Paul... let's see what happens."
     The two beasts made their last sounding and accelerated to four
miles per hour.  The pessimist was crushed between the double colliding
of the giants.  The frobedozers stood, side by side past the crushed form
of the pessimist.  For a moment, their muzzles met and thick tongues
touched.  Then both of the beasts turned and began to feed on the
pessimist.
     "They share meals!" Mary's voice again as she and Paul watched from
behind the camera.  "No fighting or territorial pushing matches."
     The frobedozers finished eating the pessimist in fifteen minutes. 
Immediately after, they began a slow caress of rubbing muzzles.
     "You sure the camera's OK?" Mary's voice was higher and excited
now.
     "Mating ritual?" Paul's voice was far softer with the uncertain
guess.
     "Could be."  Mary watched the giant's caresses turn into an
anxious, pleasant struggle.  "I'd bet my pay on it."
     When the frobedozers had parted and collapsed to sleep in the warm
sun, Mary and Paul walked into the holographic picture.
     "We'll file this in the reproduction folder," Mary told Paul as the
picture stopped and faded away.
     "Now I know why the frobedozers have all of those protective
armored plates," Leslie commented.  "They aren't graceful."
     "So they only mate when there is a chance meeting at a double
kill," Curry took his glasses off and polished them with a baggy fold of
his shirt.  "What does that suggest to you, Leslie?"
     "Two things," she looked over at David.  "This method would keep
the population of frobedozers low, so there would be little chance of the
predators killing too much prey.  The second possibility would be that if
there is a large herd of pessimists, there will be more frobedozers
following them.  This would lead to more double kills and offspring. 
Proximity is important for more things than tasting the future."
     "Alright," Curry pointed to the remote.  "Let's look at pregnancy."
     Paul's picture came to life in the cramped office on Frobe's.  Like
Curry, his background was in physiology while Mary was the behavioralist.
     "The female frobedozer has a gestation period that we estimate at 6
earth years," Paul began.  "The abdomen of the frobedozer just behind the
dome of the cranium houses a liquid-filled organ that serves as a uterus. 
In order to balance the creature's incredible weight over the forelegs,
this organ remains filled, even when the frobedozer is not pregnant. 
Male frobedozers have a similar and less complicated organ dedicated to
balancing the body.  As the fetus grows, the liquid in the uterus is bled
off so that the mother's balance is not thrown off."
     "I've just started to study the birth process," Paul continued
after taking a sip of water and wiping his brow with a cloth.  "Since the
frobedozer has no sensations of pain, my theory is that the armor plate
near the bottom of the abdomen breaks in half and the newborn frobedozer
slides down this incline to be born.  Though there is no pain to the
female, this does shock the frobedozer's system considerably.  Mary and I
will try to get documented evidence of this theory and find out how the
frobedozer recovers from childbirth.  After birth, the mother frobedozer
must be incapacitated for several days.  That broken plate must begin to
mend before she can walk again."
     Paul's image faded and the expanse of the plain was again visible. 
In the center of the yellow grass, a female frobedozer lay on her stomach
and lowered the fore segment of her head into a hole in the ground. 
Moving away from her was a calf, still glistening in birth fluids.
     Mary ran into the picture and moved cautiously to the mother's
side.  Looking down into the hole that the mother frobedozer had dug,
Mary nodded and jogged back to talk to Paul.
     "It's a standard water well," Mary disappeared from the image as
she left the camera's field.  "Recently dug."
     "It must have to replace those bodily fluids before it can balance
the body over the forelegs," Paul's voice responded.  "The frobedozer
must dig the well just before giving birth."
     "I imagine," Curry noted for Leslie's benefit after pausing the
recording, "that a predator that can hunt by tasting the future would
have no trouble in finding an easy place to dig a well."
     "That makes sense," Leslie nodded.  "It should also help
frobedozers hunt later."
     "How so?"
     "Frobe's is a dry world with few large fresh water lakes and
rivers," Leslie shifted to pull her legs onto the plush chair.  "These
holes with open water should attract thirsty pessimists by the herd.  It
might be possible that the prey follows the predator for the water, then
the frobedozer eats a pessimist so that it can continue to dig wells. 
Without the frobedozers, there would be far less pessimists."
     "Interesting theory," David told the AI to resume the report.
     The image changed from the recuperating mother to a close-up of the
striding calf.  It moved across the plain from right to left and kept up
a break-neck frobedozer pace of nearly six miles per hour.
     "Well, the female frobedozer doesn't have any mammary glands or
other feeding devices," Paul's voice again.  "Since we've never seen a
young frobedozer accompanying a parent on a hunt, it makes sense that the
calf is on its own as soon as it's born."
     "Yes," Mary hesitated and the image of her hand suddenly appeared
at the edge of the picture.  "Look at that, Paul!"
     The calf opened its jaws for the first time and slammed them shut
violently.
     "Whump!"
     "Its sounding!"  Mary exclaimed in what was nearly a cheer.  "Only
hours old and the calf is making its first charge!"
     The young scientists followed the quick frobedozer and soon saw a
herd of pessimists.  Following the time honored methods of its parents,
the 3 ton infant crashed into a frozen pessimist and settled down to
feed.
     "The gestation period makes more sense now," Paul commented.  "The
calf is just large enough to crush a small pessimist."
     "The mother picked a good spot to have the calf," Mary added. 
"Without a herd of pessimists nearby, the calf might not have enough
endurance to make a long trek or pursuit."
     "Stop!" Leslie's voice halted the picture.
     "Are you well, Leslie?" Curry looked at his partner and saw that
she had gone pale.
     "I want the AI to do a database search," Leslie put her feet back
on the floor and sat on the edge of the plush chair.  "Dave, tell it to
search Mary's predatory record and match all frobedozer kills to
frobedozer families.  I want to see how many pessimists are killed by
children of the predators since my niece arrived on Frobe's."
     "Very well," Curry still looked at her with concern.  "AI list all
pessimists kills.  Primary sort on family code.  Secondary sort by
frobedozer ID tag number.  Control break on family code.  Display
pictorial listing."
     In seconds, the holographic system displayed the first frobedozer
family.  There were only two hunters on the left side of the display, but
the pictures of pessimists that they had eaten filled the right side.
     "Not very many in this family," Leslie commented.
     "That's just a reflection of the age of the database," David
pointed to the left.  "This frobedozer has only had one calf since your
niece arrived.  After all, the gestation period is six years.  Mary
hasn't had a chance to build up a lot of data in frobedozer genealogy."
     "But the database is filled with data about frobedozer kills,"
Leslie paged through the small families of frobedozers and their numerous
meals.  "Now I want a list of all proximity phenomena.  Match the
proximity phenomena with the frobedozer who eventually makes the kill. 
Only include female frobedozers in the sounding portion."
     "AI," Curry frowned as he thought about her request.  "Search for
female frobedozers who were involved in proximity phenomena and all
frobedozers in subsequent kills.  Sort by pessimist ID tag.  List
frobedozers.  Display pictorial listing."
     This time, the left of the display held a picture of a singular
pessimist, while the right had pictures of two frobedozers.  One of the
predators was marked 'sounding' while the other was marked 'kill.' 
Leslie paged through the list of ten matches to the database search, and
her hands began to tremble.
     "Merge the two reports together," she reached across the small
table between them and pulled at David's sleeve.  "Show proximity
phenomena and kills within each family."
     "AI," Curry put his hand over hers to try and calm her.  "Intersect
the results of the last two reports.  Relate and sort on family code."
     Leslie again paged through the list of frobedozers and their
pessimist victims.  With a cry, she jumped out of her chair and leaned
over Curry.  He stiffened as she pushed him to one side and dug into his
pocket.  Finding the image cube that Colonel Grav had given him, she
turned to the display station on the table and jammed the cube in.
     "Leslie, what is going on?" David was now standing next to her.
     "AI show me the image of the dead frobedozer on that cube," she
commanded.  "Show me the adult frobedozer from the last film clip.  Show
them at the same time."
     "Split view, left and right," Curry amended her inexperienced
command.
     Leslie looked briefly at the dead frobedozer and then walked to the
edge of the holographic stage.  She looked at the prone figure of the
frobedozer from Mary's report.  Suddenly, Leslie spun and grabbed Curry.
     "We've got to call Colonel Grav," Leslie screamed.
     "What is it?" Curry put both hands on her arms to keep her from
dragging him out of the room.
     "Mary's last observation gave me the vital clue," Leslie still
pulled him after her.  "She said that a young frobedozer must be near a
herd of pessimists when it's born.  That way it can run a short distance
to catch its first meal."
     "Yes," Curry nodded.
     "The last database search you ran for me matched the proximity
phenomena to kills within each frobedozer family," she saw his eyebrows
rise.  "All of the recorded proximity phenomena were made by mother
frobedozers, and the kills were made by their offspring."
     Curry began to run for the door and she followed him out of the
holographic chamber.
     "It all matches the frobedozer's behavior," Leslie continued to
talk as she kept up with her older colleague.  "The mother frobedozer
sounds at the pessimist that her calf will eat.  She then tracks the
pessimist until she gives birth.  The calf's crystal takes over and
guides it to its first meal.  The mother must be able to instinctively
detect her calf's first kill."
     "I see," Curry reached the end of the hall of administrative
offices and opened the door to the parking lot.  "The mother must be
connected to the calf's crystal.  Perhaps that's why the umbilical on a
frobedozer is connected to the base of the rear of the skull."
     "The pictures from Frobe's Planet and our frobedozer match," Leslie
jumped into the car after he unlocked it.  She poked at the phone in his
car.  "I thought Grav's men had cut open the frobedozer to look for
Larry's body," she slapped her own thigh.  "I was too preoccupied in
looking at the frobedozer's muzzle to ask about it.  That was a stupid
assumption."
     "But why wouldn't we know the frobedozer was pregnant?" Curry
gunned the engine and shot across the lot.
     "The fluid in the frobedozer that is used as a balance fooled us,"
she told him.  "In order to keep the heavy front of the body balanced,
all frobedozers have that liquid ballast.  A pregnant female simply
displaces the fluids with the fetus.  When the calf is born, the mother
recuperates by drinking huge amounts of water.  That's why we found our
frobedozer on the shore of the lake."
     "Grav here," the colonel sounded irritated.
     "Grav," Leslie clutched at the phone as if it were a lifeline.  "Go
to Larry Porti's camp and get him out of there.  There's a frobedozer
calf hunting him!"
                   *               *               *
     Larry snuggled into his sleeping bag and turned away from the first
lances of sunlight from across the lake.
     "Nothing is going to ruin the next hour of sleep," Larry thought to
himself dreamily.  "Not the sun.  Not the herd of deer that I felt run
by."
     The motionless frobedozer had stopped near the edge of the path. 
Its huge jaws opened as it prepared to continue the inevitable cycle of
life.