"What's the matter with it, then?" asked Major Grodski, eying the fruit with sleepy curiosity. Dr. Pilar gave the thing a wry look and put it back in the specimen bag. "Except for the fact that it has killed every one of our test specimens, we don't know what's wrong with it." Colonel Fennister looked around the laboratory at the cages full of chittering animals--monkeys, white mice, rats, guinea pigs, hamsters, and the others. Then he looked back at the scientist. "Don't you know what killed them?" Pilar didn't answer; instead, he glanced at Dr. Smathers, the physician. Smathers steepled his fingers over his abdomen and rubbed his fingertips together. "We're not sure. Thus far, it looks as though death was caused by oxygen starvation in the tissues." "Some kind of anemia?" hazarded the colonel. Smathers frowned. "The end results are similar, but there is no drop in the hemoglobin--in fact, it seems to rise a little. We're still investigating that. We haven't got all the answers yet, by any means, but since we don't quite know what to look for, we're rather hampered." The colonel nodded slowly. "Lack of equipment?" "Pretty much so," admitted Dr. Smathers. "Remember, we're just here for preliminary investigation. When the ship brings in more men and equipment--" His voice trailed off. Very likely, when the ship returned, it would find an empty base. The first-string team simply wasn't set up for exhaustive work; its job was to survey the field in general and mark out the problems for the complete team to solve. Establishing the base had been of primary importance, and that was the sort of equipment that had been carried on the ship. That--and food. The scientists had only the barest essentials to work with; they had no electron microscopes or any of the other complex instruments necessary for exhaustive biochemical work. Now that they were engaged in a fight for survival, they felt like a gang of midgets attacking a herd of water-buffalo with penknives. Even if they won the battle, the mortality rate would be high, and their chances of winning were pretty small. The Space Service officers and the scientists discussed the problem for over an hour, but they came to no promising conclusion. At last, Colonel Fennister said: "Very well, Dr. Pilar; we'll have to leave the food supply problem in your hands. Meanwhile, I'll try to keep order here in the camp." * * * * * SM/2 Broderick MacNeil may not have had a top-level grade of intelligence, but by the end of the second week, his conscience was nagging him, and he was beginning to wonder who was goofing and why. After much thinking--if we may so refer to MacNeil's painful cerebral processes--he decided to ask a few cautious questions.