Stellor Downing put his hand on the creature's back. He held it for a moment and then let go. Lane put the little animal on the ground and stood back.
"Well?"
"Wait a minute, will you? Even potassium cyanide takes time to kill—"
The little creature was running around, sniffing the ground and obviously looking for food. For three minutes it searched quietly, and then with a plaintive mew, it sat on its haunches and scratched its back. The plaintive cry became louder—and tufts of hair came from the back where the hind paw was scratching.
The creature scratched furiously—and succeeded in de-hairing its back, in the shape of Stellor Downing's hand!
"What in—?"
"Wait."
Downing looked at his hand in a sort of horror.
The scratching increased, and bits of skin followed the pattern of the bare patch. The plaintive cry became strident in a tiny voice. The little animal stopped scratching, turned over on its back and wriggled in the dirt of the spaceport. It wrenched itself back and forth sharply, and with squeals of pain. Its four feet opened and closed against its stomach, and the whites of its eyes gleamed.
A black patch appeared on the pink of the abdomen, and the paws scratched at the spot. It grew, and the pig cried continuously.