Dodeth looked through the three pages of the booklet. There wasn't much there, really, but he knew Wygor well enough to know that all the data he had thus far was there. The only thing that rankled was that Wygor had delayed for three work periods before reporting the intrusion of the new beast, and now five of them had been spotted. He looked at the page which showed the three bathygraphs that had been taken of the new animals from a distance. There was something odd about them, and Dodeth couldn't, for the hide of him, figure out what it was. It aroused an odd fear in him, and made him want to burrow deeper into the ground. "I can't see what keeps 'em from falling over," he said at last. "Are they as slow-moving as they look?" "They don't move very fast," Wygor admitted, "but we haven't seen any of them startled yet. I don't see how they could run very fast, though. It must take every bit of awareness they have to stay balanced on two legs." Dodeth sighed whistlingly and pushed the data booklet back across the business bench to Wygor. "All right; I'll file the preliminary spotting report. Now get out there and get me some pertinent data on this queer beast. Scramble off." "Right away, sir." "And ... Wygor--" "Yes, sir?" "It's apparent that we have a totally new species here. It will be called a _wygorex_, of course, but it would be better if we waited until we could make a full report to the Keepers. So don't let any of this out--especially to the other Septs." "Certainly not, sir; not a whistle. Anything else?" "Just keep me posted, that's all. Scramble off." After Wygor had obediently scrambled off, Dodeth relaxed all his knees and sank to his belly in thought. His job was not an easy one. He would like to have his office get full credit for discovering a new species, just as Wygor had--understandably enough--wanted to get his share of the credit. On the other hand, one had to be careful that holding back information did not constitute any danger to the Balance. Above all, the Balance must be preserved. Even the snith had its place in the Ecological Balance of the World--although one didn't like to think about sniths as being particularly useful. After all, every animal, every planet had its place in the scheme; each contributed its little bit to maintaining the Balance. Each had its niche in the ecological architecture, as Dodeth liked to think of it. The trouble was that the Balance was a shifting, swinging, ever-changing thing. Living tissues carried the genes of heredity in them, and living tissues are notoriously plastic under the influence of the proper radiation or particle bombardment. And animals _would_ cross the poles.