He didn't, though. Rather than accuse Wygor, it would be better if
Wygor were allowed to accuse himself. Dodeth merely wanted to wait for
the opportunity to present itself. And then--ah, _then_ there would be
a roasting!
The opportunity came in the latter part of the next work period.
Wygor, who had purportedly been up on the surface for another field
trip, scuttled excitedly into Dodeth's office, wildly waving some
bathygraph sheets.
"Dodeth, sir! Look! I came down as soon as I saw it! I've got the
'graphs right here! Horrible!"
Before Dodeth could say anything, Wygor had spread the sheets out
fan-wise on his business bench. Dodeth looked at them and experienced
a moment of horror himself before he realized that these were--these
_must_ be--doctored bathygraphs. Even so, he gave an involuntary gasp.
The first 'graphs had been taken from an aerial reconnaissance robot
winging in low over the treetops. The others were taken from a higher
altitude. They all showed the same carnage.
An area of several thousand square feet--_tens_ of thousands!--had
been cleared of trees! They had been ruthlessly cut down and stacked.
Bushes and vines had gone with them, and the grass had been crushed
and plowed up by the dragging of the great fallen trees. And there
were obvious signs that the work was still going on. In the close-ups,
he could see the bipedal beasts wielding cutting instruments.
Dodeth forced himself to calmness and glared at the bathygraphs. Fry
it, they _had_ to be fakes. A new species might appear only once in a
hundred years, but according to Yerdeth, this couldn't possibly be a
new species. What was Wygor's purpose in lying, though? Why should he
falsify data? And it must be he; he had said that he had seen the
beasts himself. Well, Dodeth would have to find out.
"Tool users, eh?" he said, amazed at the calmness of his voice. Such
animals weren't unusual. The sniths used tools for digging and even
for fighting each other. And the hurkles dammed up small streams with
logs to increase their marshland. It wasn't immediately apparent what
these beasts were up to, but it was far too destructive to allow it to
go on.
But, fry it all, it _couldn't_ be going on!
There were only two alternatives. Either Wygor was a liar or Yerdeth
didn't know what he was talking about. And there was only one way of
finding out which was which.
"Ardan! Get my equipment ready! We're going on a field trip! Wygor,
you get the rest of the expedition ready; you and I are going up to
see what all this is about." He jabbed at the communicator button.
"Fry it! Why should this have to happen in my sector? Hello! Give me
an inter-city connection. I want to talk to Baythim Venns,
co-ordinator of Ecological Control, in Faisalla."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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