The warmth of the gesture startled her, as if she'd met an acquaintance in a distant place. She waved back.

It turned away, scooped a wriggling sea creature out of the surf, dunked it in a wave, and dropped it into its wide mouth. It looked again toward Hutch, with evident satisfaction, and threw several handfuls of water into the air.

She splashed a little water on herself. But I draw the line at the quick lunch.

A screech shattered the general tranquility. It echoed off the cliffs. The creatures froze. Then a general rush began. Inland, toward the pass. Several herded cubs before them. One adult went down. Hutch couldn't see what was happening to it; but it was struggling in shallow water, yelping pitiably, its limbs jerking and twitching.

Hutch raised a hand to block off the sun's glare. And sensed a presence near her left shoulder.

An eye.

Green and expressionless. It was mounted on a stalk.

Her heart froze. She could not breathe and she could not move. She wanted to throw herself into the sea, hide from this thing that had risen beside her.

The eye watched her. It was the color of the sea. A section was missing out of the iris, rather like a piece out of a pie. As Hutch tried to get her emotions under control, the piece widened, and the iris narrowed. Slowly, a nictitating membrane closed over it, then opened again.

A second stalk-mounted eye appeared beside the first, somewhat higher. And another beyond those. The stalks moved like long grass in an uncertain breeze.

During those long, dazed moments, she caught only aspects of the thing that had approached her. Four eyes. A broad flat insect head, to which the eyes were attached. A hairy thorax. Segments. The creature was gray-green and chitinous. Hutch saw mandibles and tentacles and jaws.

The thing stood on the water, stood upright on a set of stick legs. The shuttles and the pier rose and fell in the light chop, but the creature remained motionless. It seemed almost disconnected from the physical world.

Hutch fought down her panic. And in a voice surprisingly level, she spoke into her throat mike: "This is Hutchins. Anybody there?"

"Hutch, what's wrong?" It was Janet.

"Janet," she said, softly, as if the creature might hear through the Flickinger field, "I'm looking at a big bug."

"How big?"

"Big. Three meters." Pause for breath. "Mantis. Squid. Don't know—"

"Are you outsidel" Janet's tone turned vaguely accusing.

"Yes." Whispered.

"Where outside?" There was a hint of anger in the voice before it regained its professional calm.

"The floatpier."

"Okay. It's not dangerous. But don't move. Okay? Not a muscle. I'm on my way."

"You?"

"You want to hang on while I look around for help?"

Thick fluid leaked out of the bug's mouth.

"No," she said.

The goddam thing sure looked dangerous.

Hutch was acutely aware of the piercing screams from the beach. She had an iron grip on the guardrail, and could not have let go under any conceivable circumstance. Limbs flexed; three of the eyes swiveled away, came back.

The Flickinger field wouldn't be much help here, no more likely to protect her against the razor thrust of those jaws than an old pressure suit would. "You may want to hurry," she said into the mike, detesting the whimper in her voice.

"It's only a strider. I'll be there in a minute. You're doing fine."

If it wasn't dangerous, why did she have to keep still?

With her eyes, Hutch measured the distance to the Alpha cockpit. About fifteen meters. She could open the hatch from here by voice control. And she thought she could sprint the distance and get into the spacecraft before the thing could react. But the hatch would need about fifteen seconds to close. Would the beast give her that kind of time?

The thing touched some deep primal nerve. She would have been frightened of it had it been only a few centimeters tall. "Alpha, open cockpit."

She heard the pop of the hatch.

Three of the eyes turned toward the sound.

"Hutch." Janet again. Her voice flat. "Don't do anything. Wait for me. Just stay put and don't move. Okay?"

The creature watched the shuttle.

The shrieks from the beach had stopped. She wasn't sure when, but she didn't dare look away to see what was happening. She was breathing again. Barely. She braced one foot so she could get up.

She literally saw a quickening of interest in the eyes.

The jaws twitched. A tentacle unrolled.

She wanted to look away. But she could not disengage.

Janet, where are you! In her mind, she traced the steps. The duty officer had probably been at her station, which was less than a minute from the sub bay. Stop to pick up a pulser. Where did they keep the pulsers? The voyage last night from the pier to Seapoint had taken between eight and ten minutes. But Carson had been in no hurry. Surely the sub could make the trip in five or less. Say seven minutes altogether.

The wind blew, and one of the pelicans flew past.

How many pictures do you get with four eyes capable of looking in different directions? What is it seeing!

Why had she come away without a weapon? She knew the drill. But she had never been attacked, anywhere. Dumb.

One of the eyes rose. Gazed over her shoulder at something behind her.

"Right with you." Janet's voice again. "We're in good shape." She heard the whine of the sub, and the hiss of an air exchanger.

The creature was inside the U, separated from the open sea by the dock. It would be difficult to bring the sub to bear against it directly. But that shouldn't matter. Hutch waited for the crackle of a pulser.

Instead the sub banged into the pier. The stalk-eyes turned away from Hutch. "Okay." Janet's tone changed, acquired the weight of command. "Get away from it. Into the shuttle. Move."

Hutch broke and ran. In the same moment, she saw Janet leap from the cockpit of the sub, swinging a wrench. The creature turned to face her. Tentacles whipped, jaws opened, and the eyes drew back. Janet, lovely, blond, drawing-room Janet, stepped inside the writhing tangle and brought the wrench down squarely on the thing's head. Green syrup exploded from the skull, and it staggered. They went down together and fell into the water. The struggling mass slipped beneath the surface.

Hutch gasped and raced back to help. The water thrashed. They came up. Janet grabbed the pier, and nailed it again across one mandible. The thing collapsed into a pile of broken sticks, and drifted away on the current.

Hutch went down on her knees and held Janet while she caught her breath. When she did, she demanded whether Hutch was okay.

Hutch was humiliated. "Why didn't you bring a weapon?" she demanded.

"I did. Brought the first one I could find."

Now it was Hutch's turn to be angry. "Don't you people have any pulsersl"

Janet grinned. She was bruised and still breathing hard. Her hair hung down in her face and she was bleeding from a couple of cuts. But to Hutch she looked damned good. "Somewhere. But I thought you'd want me out here quick."

Hutch tried to check her for damage, but Janet insisted she was okay. The cuts looked minor.

"Thanks," said Hutch.

Janet put an arm around her shoulder. Their energy fields flashed. "You get one on the house," she said. "But don't do it again. Okay?"

"Was it really dangerous?" asked Hutch. "I mean, all it did was stand there."

The battle ashore had also ended. Several of the furry creatures watched the sea from a rocky shelf well out of harm's way. "These things snack on the beach monkeys," she said, indicating the creatures. "I guess this one didn't quite know what to make of you."

Kosmik Ground Control South. Tuesday; 0900 Temple Time.

Living worlds were exceedingly rare. The reason seemed to be that Jovian planets were also quite rare. In the solar system, Jupiter's comet-deflecting capabilities had reduced the number of major terrestrial impacts to a quarter percent of what could otherwise have been expected. And made life possible on Earth.