"Smile when you say that, Irish."
"Sure, and ain't I always smilin'? Ah, Click boy, are them tears in your sweet grey eyes?"
"Damn," swore the photographer, embarrassedly. "Why don't they put window-wipers in these helmets?"
"I'll take it up with the Board, lad."
"Forget it. I was so blamed glad to see your homely carcass in one hunk, I couldn't help—Look, now, about Gunther. Those animals are part of his set-up. Explorers who land here inadvertently, are chased back into their ships, forced to take off. Tourists and the like. Nothing suspicious about animals. And if the tourists don't leave, the animals kill them."
"Shaw, now. Those animals can't kill."
"Think not, Mr. Marnagan? As long as we believed in them they could have frightened us to death, forced us, maybe, to commit suicide. If that isn't being dangerous—"
The Irishman whistled.
"But, we've got to move, Irish. We've got twenty minutes of oxygen. In that time we've got to trace those monsters to their source, Gunther's Base, fight our way in, and get fresh oxy-cannisters." Click attached his camera to his mid-belt. "Gunther probably thinks we're dead by now. Everyone else's been fooled by his playmates; they never had a chance to disbelieve them."
"If it hadn't been for you taking them pictures, Click—"