"Sorry," Fayon said, joining the group. "Didn't notice how late it was getting. We're still doing a post on this svant-bat; that's what Charley's calling it, till we get the native name.
"The immediate cause of death was spasmodic contraction of every muscle in the thing's body; some of them were partly relaxed before we could get to work on it, but not completely. Every bone that isn't broken is dislocated; a good many both. There is not the slightest trace of external injury. Everything was done by its own muscles." He looked around. "I hope nobody covered Ayesha's bet, after I left. If they did, she collects. The large outer membranes in the comb seem to be unaffected, but there is considerable compression of the small round ones inside, in just one area, and more on the left side than on the right. Charley says it was flying across in front of him from left to right."
"The receptor-area responding to the frequencies of the report," Ayesha said.
Anna de Jong made a passing gesture toward Fayon. "The baby's yours, Bennet," she said. "This isn't psychological. I won't accept a case of psychosomatic compound fracture."
"Don't be too premature about it, Anna. I think that's more or less what you have, here."
Everybody looked at him, surprised. His subject was comparative technology. The bio- and psycho-sciences were completely outside his field.
"A lot of things have been bothering me, ever since the first contact. I'm beginning to think I'm on the edge of understanding them, now. Bennet, the higher life-forms here—the people, and that domsee, and Charley's svant-bat—are structurally identical with us. I don't mean gross structure, like ears and combs. I mean molecular and cellular and tissue structure. Is that right?"
Fayon nodded. "Biology on this planet is exactly Terra type. Yes. With adequate safeguards, I'd even say you could make a viable tissue-graft from a Svant to a Terran, or vice versa."
"Ayesha, would the sound waves from that pistol-shot in any conceivable way have the sort of physical effect we're considering?"
"Absolutely not," she said, and Luis Gofredo said: "I've been shot at and missed with pistols at closer range than that."