TABBY
By Winston Marks
Illustrated by Rudolph Palais
[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from IF Worlds of Science Fiction March 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Tabby was peculiar, of course, but seemed harmless: just a little green fly that couldn't even protect itself from ordinary spiders. So the spiders fed, and grew, and fed, and grew....
April 18, 1956
Dear Ben: It breaks my heart you didn't sign on for this trip. Your replacement, who calls himself an ichthyologist, has only one talent that pertains to fish—he drinks like one. There are nine of us in the expedition, and every one of us is fed up with this joker, Cleveland, already. We've only been on the island a week, and he's gone native, complete with beard, bare feet and bone laziness. He slops around the lagoon like a beachcomber and hasn't brought in a decent specimen yet.