Finally, I muttered, "More than one way to bring home a zloor," and, taking my gun by the barrel, I swung it viciously down at the gentle looking little animal—feeling like a heel as I did it.
I might have saved my feelings, because two seconds later I was gazing wide-eyed at the shattered stock of my rifle and the zloor was still eating away at the tree.
I tried just one more experiment before I called it a day. I put the rifle barrel under him and tried to pry him off the ground. The zloor still ignored me, but the steel barrel bent under the pressure. The animal hadn't budged.
Without knocking, I walked back into Mike Holiday's room. He was lying stretched out on the bed, his hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling.
He didn't need to look at me. He said, "Nap, you are now a full-fledged member of the zloor club."
"What does one of those things weigh?" I snapped.
"Hey, red-head," he grunted, "don't take it out on me, I didn't invent them. Far as I know, nobody's ever weighed one, but it's been estimated that they go about five tons here on Mars. Six times that on earth."
"That's insane!"
"Sure is. That's why the government wants one so badly. Just isn't natural for such an animal to develop in the solar system."