As Hawkins guided the car past a group of the giant field workers, Cole felt Bidgrass' eyes on him. He turned, and the old man said slowly, "Stick to piskies, Mr. Cole. We'll all be happier."
"Anything may be data to an ecologist, especially if he overlooks it," Cole murmured stubbornly.
Hawkins cackled something about "Hoggy Darn itha hoose" and speeded up.
In the cavernous, machinery-lined plant Cole met the manager. He was the same powerful, long-haired man Cole had seen in the garden. "Morgan," Bidgrass introduced him with the one name, adding, "He doesn't use Galactic English."
Morgan bent his head slightly, unsmiling, ignoring Cole's offered hand. His wide-set eyes were so lustrously black that they seemed to have no pupils, and under the hostile stare Cole flushed angrily. They walked through the plant, Morgan talking to Bidgrass in the vernacular. His voice was deep and resonant, organ-like.
Bidgrass explained to Cole how stomper egg was vac-frozen under biostat and sealed in plastic for export. He pointed out a piece of shell, half an inch thick and highly translucent. From its radius of curvature Cole realized that stomper eggs were much larger than he had pictured them. Then someone shouted and Bidgrass said a flyer was coming in. They went out on the loading dock.
The flyer alongside carried six men forward of the cargo space and had four heavy blasters mounted almost like a warcraft. As the dock crew unloaded two eggs into dollies, other flyers were skittering in, further along the dock. Bidgrass pointed out to Cole on one huge four by three-foot egg the bases of broken parasite eggs cemented to its shell. Through a hole made by piskies, the ecologist noted that the substance of the large egg was a stiff gel. Morgan flashed a strong pocket lamp on the shell and growled something.
"There may be a pisky hiding inside," Bidgrass said. "You are lucky, Mr. Cole."
Morgan stepped inside and returned almost at once wearing goggles and heavy gloves, and carrying a small power saw. He used the light again, traced an eight-inch square with his finger, and sawed it out. The others, all but Cole, stood back. Morgan pulled away the piece and something black flew up, incredibly swift, with a shrill, keening sound.