As the Station's head ecologist, it was his duty to evaluate a great many aspects of the survey which might not be apparent even to the chief. For instance, assuming there were such a predator in the neighborhood, what might be the probable results of trying to exterminate it? Or what was its relationship to a region in which there were so many winged creatures--"birds," they called them for the sake of simplicity, although they were actually flying marsupials and some very large insects--and so few ground animals that might serve as its prey? Was it itself winged, or, he asked himself, did its mind-paralyzing ability serve to pluck birds out of the trees? He stiffened. Even while his mind had been busy with the subject, he had been automatically scanning the view with the involuntary precision of his profession. From the Station, the cleared ground sloped away to a cluster of tall tree-ferns whose upper branches, long and drooping like greatly oversized date-palm fronds, brushed the mossy earth. And among those branches Fenner had seen something long and glossy move swiftly. All his attention focused at once on that spot. In the same instant, he whipped out the tiny binoculars he always carried in a side pocket, and put them to his eyes. There was no doubt of it, something was crouching in the shadow of the fronds. He had difficulty making it out, for it was a pale blue-green, but he had an impression of a heavy head and shoulders, and what appeared to be, incongruously, a bunch of feathers. "Feather crest?" he thought to himself, with a grin. "Indians?" The creature moved again. It slid sinuously out of the shadows and crouched on the moss. Its color then changed to a darker green dappled with brown. Fenner saw through the glass that the bunch of feathers was a pair of antennae, similar to those of the larger moths, that sprang from the top of its narrow head. It had short legs and a slender body covered with short, fine fur. The general effect was that of a smallish mountain lion. As he watched, the creature turned on its own length somewhat as a snake might turn, and glided out of sight over the edge of a ridge. Fenner did not hesitate. Without a second thought, he snatched up his plastic suit and zipped it on. The air of Orpheus was breathable, but the suits had been designed to prevent contact with possibly poisonous spores, pollen, plants, or insects. He took down a Remington which was capable of delivering a bolt sufficient to stun a bear at thirty yards; his intention was to capture the beast for study, not to kill it. He also clipped to his belt a Mark III collecting net, a light, strong, fine-mesh net in a capsule the size of an old-fashioned hand grenade. Then he let himself out the side lock and ran quickly across the moss towards the spot where the beast had vanished.