Teucrete's stare held on him for a moment, as if puzzled. Her eyes moved on, focusing on Angel, then Pao Chung. Presently, they came back to Ferris, amused and faintly mocking. "What is a gamma-man doing here?" she asked. "An interesting question," said Pao Chung ironically. "But not of prime importance at the moment." Ferris watched a smile writhe on the girl's lips and felt a quick relief. She might help, if only to thwart Pao Chung's idea of throwing him to the human wolves outside. A harsh voice clamored for admittance. The animals were growing restive again. An earthy bellow boomed out against a counterpoint of birdlike trills. The sand leopards coughed guttural warnings. Somewhere a pygmy elephant trumpeted, and the giant insects burst into deafening clatters. Teucrete motioned for silence, then drew the bolts and held the gate ajar on its short chain. "Who's there?" she demanded roughly. "Police," several voices explained. "Open the gate, or we'll break it down." "Have you a warrant?" "It's a security matter," someone explained hopefully. "Tell that to the animals," she stormed. "It's as much as your life's worth to come in here tonight. They're upset already, and I can't control them if you keep up this noise. Go away." An authoritative voice blustered. "This is an important matter. Let me talk to your father." Teucrete shrugged. "He will be back by noon tomorrow. Come then, and bring a warrant to search. Or--" She followed the speech with some insulting suggestions, not in the best of taste. The authoritative voice turned into a gargle addressing a slammed gate. Profanity did not disturb the tracker, which continued to root noisily at the metal. [Illustration: _Bogus Angel watched protectively from the wall top as the mechanical bloodhound inched toward Teucrete while she talked with the police._] Teucrete shoved bolts into sockets and stood back. She sighed, and beckoned the three men to follow her. They moved amid a nightmarish cacophony of sounds. In memory roused by the various elements of the uproar, Bat Ferris revisited the far planets. Fortunately the light was too dim to see all the sources of sound, but Ferris mentally identified many of the caged dwellers by ear or by nose. Wrigglers from the mercury mines of Callisto. Venusian swamp slugs, and grull-cats from the Tihar Forest. Morbau-spawn from the honeycombed caverns of Triton. Wireflies and needle-flies, known by their eerie humming and buzzing. Seven-limbed bat-noses from the twilight zone of Mercury. Iceworms from Neptune and Pluto, and the deadly windharps from Mars. Amiably imbecilic moondogs from the satellites of Saturn pressed blank flat faces against the walls of their insulated glass tanks. Monsters out of nightmare. A madman's miscellany. There was more, an incredible infinity of animal horizons. But imagination reels back, and description falters. What words can catalog the fringes of morphology! * * * * *