The technician leaned out the airlock door, his homely face split in a grin. "No problem with the aliens, sir," he said to Peters. "Amiability indeterminate, but their basic weapon is infrasonics. They're built like hard bubbles, sure suckers for bayonets or bullets. I don't think, with sonic-shields, we'll have much trouble with them."
Peters, in the process of pouring Jerry's coffee, shrugged. "Well, we're not here to make trouble, either. The roborocket reported that the aliens live either at sea or at least always in coastal regions. They shouldn't object to our starting a settlement this far inland."
"And," said Jerry, suddenly, as he took the coffee and sipped at the hot brown liquid, "I suppose those worm-creatures and the horned lions are to be eliminated?"
The technician dropped his eyes. "We can't have new colonists getting pulled into those burrows, or impaled on those horns, sir." He handed the report, translated by the machine into readable English, to Peters. The pilot scanned the sheets, and nodded.
"Seems easy enough," he said agreeably. "Those jellyfish-things, and the flying apes are similar to species encountered before. They'll respond to simple gunfire. Removal of the worm-things will be automatic, once their source of sustenance is destroyed."
Jerry continued to sip his coffee and made no comment.
"As for the lion-things," Peters continued, "I doubt we'll have to attack them directly, since their digestive mechanism calls for sulphur from those pits. When we cap off the pits, or dry them up, to clear the air for the incoming colonial wave, that should starve them out within a week."
"Less than that," Jerry remarked emotionlessly. "Being hungry they'll eat, regardless. Then, unable to go on to the next step in the process—the ingestion of the sulphur—they'll die of food-poisoning. Simple, neat and efficient."
Peters smiled and gripped Jerry's hand with his own.
"We have you to thank for the information, sir," he said, in obvious admiration. "At least we know we won't have to fight the intelligent aliens. We'll have the central regions; they'll have the coasts and seas."