"Our pisky nutrient will work. We can take your samples within the hour. Let me call the hospital."
He spoke rapidly to the glowering butchers in the vernacular, then hurried into the building. An hour later the stomper was dead, and Hawkins drove Cole and the doctor back to their lab with the explants.
"I've almost got it," Cole said happily. "Several weeks and two more bits of information and I'll tell you. In spite of all odds, one man against a planet—this will found my professional reputation back on Belconti."
Once again Cole faced Garth Bidgrass across the round table in the library. This time he felt vastly different.
"The piskies are really baby stompers," he said, watching the craggy old face for its reaction. It did not change.
"I suspected it when I saw how the smaller eggs fused with the large egg, with continuous laminae," Cole went on. "There was the morphological resemblance, too. But when I dissected two mature stompers I found immature eggs. Even before entry into the oviduct what you call pisky eggs are filamented to the main body of cytoplasm."
Disappointingly, Bidgrass did not marvel. He squinted and cocked his head. Finally he said, "Do you mean the piskies lay their eggs internally in the stompers?"
"Impossible! I made a karyotype analysis of pisky and stomper tissue and they are identical, I tell you. My working hypothesis for now is that pisky eggs are fertilized polar bodies. It's not unknown. But that the main body should be sterile and serve as an external food source—that's new, I'm sure. That will get my name in the journals all through Carina sector."
He could not help smiling happily. Bidgrass bit his lower lip and stared keenly, not speaking. Cole became nettled.