Transcriber’s Note: This etext was produced from Astounding Science Fiction, Volume LXII No. 6, February 1959. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
MISSING LINK
BY FRANK HERBERT
The Romantics used to say that the eyes were the windows of the Soul. A good Alien Xenologist might not put it quite so poetically ... but he can, if he’s sharp, read a lot in the look of an eye!
Illustrated by van Dongen
“We ought to scrape this planet clean of every living thing on it,” muttered Umbo Stetson, section chief of Investigation & Adjustment.
Stetson paced the landing control bridge of his scout cruiser. His footsteps grated on a floor that was the rear wall of the bridge during flight. But now the ship rested on its tail fins—all four hundred glistening red and black meters of it. The open ports of the bridge looked out on the jungle roof of Gienah III some one hundred fifty meters below. A butter yellow sun hung above the horizon, perhaps an hour from setting.