Here There Be Tygers

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"An earthquake! "

Chatterton's face paled, Everyone laughed,

"It doesn't like you, Chatterton!

"Nonsensel"

The trembling died away at last.

"Well," said Captain Forester,"It didn't quake for us, so It must be that it doesn't approve of your philosophy."

"Coincidence," Chatterton smiled weakly, "Come on now, on the double, I want the Drill out here in a half hour for a few samplings,"

"Just a moment," Forester stopped laughing, "We've got to clear the area first, be certain there're no hostile people or animals, Besides, it isn't every year you hit a planet like this very nice; can you blame us if we want to have a look at it?"

"hit right," Chatterton joined them, "Let's get It over with,"

They left a guard at the ship and they walked away over fields and meadows, over small hills and into little valleys, Like a bunch of boys out hiking on the finest day of the best summer in the most beautiful year in history, walking in the croquet weather where, if you listened you could hear the whisper of the wooden ball across grass,
the click through the wicket, the gentle undulations of voices, a sudden high drift of women's laughter from some ivy shaded porch, the tinkle of ice in the summer tea pitcher,

"Hey," said Driscoll, one of the younger crewmen, sniffing the air, "I brought a baseball and bat; we'll have at game later, What a diamond! "

The men laughed quietly in the basebail season, in the good quiet wind for tennis, In the weather for bicycling and picking wild grapes.

"How'd you like the job of mowing all this?" asked Driscoll.

The men stopped.

"I knew there was something wrong!" cried Chatterton, "This grass: It's freshly cut!

"Probably a species of dichondra: always short."

Chatterton spat on the green grass and rubbed it in with his boot, "I don't like it, I don't like, it, If anything happened to its, no one on Earth would ever know, Silly policy: if a rocket fails to return, we never send a second rocket to check the reason why."

"Natural enough," explained Forester, "We can't waste time on a thousand hostile worlds, fighting futile wars, Each rocket represents years, money, lives, We can't afford to waste two rockets if one rocket proves a planet hostile, We go on to peaceful planets, Like this one."

"I often wonder," said Driscoll, "what happened to all those lost expeditions on worlds we'll never try again."

Chatterton eyed the distant forest, "They were shot, stabbed, broiled for dinner, Even as we may be, tiny minute, It's time we got back to work, Captain!

They stood at the top tot a little rise.

"Feel," said Driscoll, his hands and arms out loosely, "Remember how you used to run when you were it kid, and how the wind felt, Like feathers on your arms, You ran and thought any minute you'd fly, but you never quite did."

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