But he could see well enough to count the gnawed skeletons of the little, harmless hurkles. Even the Moon, which wouldn't bring morning for another fifteen work periods yet, couldn't have made it any plainer that these beasts were deadly dangerous to the Balance.
"How often do they eat?" he asked in a strained voice.
It was Wygor's robot, Arsam, who answered. "About three times every work period. They sleep then. Their metabolic cycle seems to be timed about the same as yours, sir."
"Gaw!" said Dodeth. "Sixty hurkles per sleep period! Why, they'll have the whole hurkle population eaten before long! Wygor! As soon as we can get shots of all this, we're going back! There's not a moment to lose! This is the most deadly dangerous thing that has ever happened to the World!"
"Fry me, yes," Wygor said in an awed voice. "Three hurkles in one period."
"Allow me to correct you, sir," said the patrol robot. "They do not eat that many hurkles. They eat other things besides."
"Like what, for instance?" Dodeth asked in a choked voice.
The robot told him, and Dodeth groaned. "Omnivores! That's even worse! Ardan, pass the word to the scouts to get their pictures and meet at that tree down there behind us in ten minutes. We've got to get back to the city!"
Dodeth Pell laid his palms flat on the speaker's bench and looked around at the assembled Keepers of the Balance, wise and prudence thinkers, who had spent lifetimes in ecological service and had shown their capabilities many times over.