“Hey, take it easy,” someone called. “Maybe Orzu bites.”
I didn’t slow down. I’d stopped being afraid of Orzu. All I wanted to do was get my hands on him. I tore down that winding trail, widening the gap between myself and the others, and suddenly came to a sharp turn and blundered into…
A tent. A couple of men standing there, their atmosphere suits sticky with slime. Two, three more men hurrying out of the tent and gaping at me. Two more tents in the background, and beyond them, half buried in the purple jungle, the crumpled remains of a small space yacht.
They swarmed down on me and pumped my hand. Both hands. They climbed all over me. They mobbed the other men as they came up. They leaped and howled with joy, and maybe they wept a little, too. I couldn’t tell, with them wearing suits.
When the celebration had quieted down, one of them, who seemed to be the leader, took me aside and started the hand shaking all over again. “I’m glad to see you,” he said. “Thought we were done for. We crashed two weeks ago. Smashed most of our equipment, and we’re almost out of air, and—say, what are you doing here?”
I sighed. “Looking for Orzu.”
He took two quick steps backwards, and then he jumped at me again, clamped a stranglehold on my neck, and pounded me on the back. “Man, you must be an expert! But how did you manage it in this jungle?”
“What are you talking about?” I said. “And who are you, anyway?”
He stepped back again. “Why, I’m Orzu. Who did you think I was?”
It was my turn to back away, and we were almost too far apart for normal conversation. “Orzu?” I repeated. blankly.
“Stephen Orzu. I’m heading a research party for the University of Arcturus.”
We got into his tent, somehow, and I told him my story. The air was thin, and he looked completely exhausted, but he laughed until he fell off his chair and rolled on the floor.
“You came all the way to Arnicus and spent three weeks in the jungle looking for…” He gasped for breath.
“Orzu,” I said.
“But there isn’t any Orzu!” he panted.
’’There is an Orzu,” I said, feeling the way a child must on Star-Festival Night, when someone says, “There isn’t a Galactic Spirit.”
I gave him a photo-copy of the report from the Journal of Galactic Exploration. He read it carefully, and rolled over onto the floor again. I quieted him down, and got him back onto his chair.
“According to this…” I began.
“I know,” he said. “I wrote that myself for the Journal. But they left out some of it. They left out the part that said the creature’s extinct!”
He sat there, tears running down his face and laughter choking him, and there wasn’t anything that I could say. Not a thing.
“I named it after myself,” he said finally. “I discovered it —discovered some skeletal remains, that is—and I’ve always wanted something like that named after me. The Bureau of Explorations has to approve it before it becomes official, but that’s a routine matter.”
“Oh,” I said.
“You’re quite a few thousand years too late to capture Orzu alive.”
“You don’t say,” I said.
“I can show you some lovely bones.”
“No, thank you. I never was very interested in bones.”
He cut short another spasm of laughter, and said thoughtfully, “You know, I wonder if this could be my fault. I wrote that letter in a hurry, and just might have neglected to mention that Orzu is extinct. I’ll have it corrected in the next issue of the Journal.”
“I wish you would,” I said. “Otherwise, some naive clerk might get sent Orzu-hunting.” Eventually Scientist Orzu recovered sufficiently to show us the specimens he’d collected. There was life on Arnicus—lots of it, in fact. But it was small, and in our search for a nine-foot-high Orzu, we’d overlooked it altogether.
He showed, us some nasty-looking reptiles, some odd insects, and an assortment of other small creatures. And a prize specimen.
“This should interest you,” he said. “This is Orzu’s ninth cousin on his stepfather’s side.” It was Orzu, all right, in the miniature. Tiny reptiles three inches long, but with all the tentacles, and the three eyes, and probably the evil disposition that old Orzu had. I tried to pick one up, and it bit me.
“I based my description of old Orzu on these,” Scientist Orzu told us. They could be direct descendents, but more likely they’re another branch of the family. We’ll probably never know, because fossil remains are hard to come by on this planet. Cute little fellows, aren’t they?”
They looked repulsive to me, but I had an inspiration. “Let’s call these things Orzu,” I said, “and ship a couple off to the Galaxia Zoological Gardens.” I wanted to salvage some measure of success from my three weeks in the Anicus jungle.
“Oh, no!” Scientist Orzu bellowed, rearing back indignantly. “I want my name on the big fellow. You wouldn’t understand, of course, but it’s a life-long ambition with me to have a giant fossil named after me. This may be my last chance. You have to discover one of those things to have the privilege of naming it, and Space knows when I’ll get away on another field trip.”
He ducked into a tent, and came out with an armful of bones. “Look at him!” he purred.
I know a fanatic when I see one, and I didn’t press the point. “Then how about Morzu?” I said.
He beamed at me. “I have a better idea. Let’s name it after you!”
“No, thank you,” I said, when I had my shuddering under control.
“Well, Morzu sounds good.” He chuckled. “I guess it will see more zoo than Orzu, at that!”
I wasn’t carrying a blaster, and probably it was just as well for Orzu that I wasn’t.
The scientist had already solved the problem of atmosphere and diet for his specimens, so we sent the ship a mission accomplished message, and started packing. Everyone was happy except Jan Garish, who went around mumbling because he wouldn’t be able to set foot on the southern continent. We ferried our own equipment, and Orzu’s, up to the cruiser, along with two extra pairs of Morzus for the zoo, and in the words of the Captain we got the hell out of there.
When we reached Base, I left the space port on the run to look for my little redhead. She’d moved, and when I located her new address her husband came to the door. She’d married her man from the Supply Department, and he gave me a brief description of what would happen to me if I tried to bother her, and slammed the door in my face.
At that point I was boiling hotter than the ocean on Arnicus. I tore back to the space port and got the Morzus shipped to Galaxia by slow freighter, hoping they’d die before they got there. I spent two hours composing a message for the Director of the Zoological Gardens. I told him that Orzu was rare and almost never seen alive, but I was shipping him not one pair, but two, of practically the same thing—a first cousin we were calling Morzu. I added some details about diet and atmosphere that Scientist Orzu had supplied, and a few precautions on the care of Morzus that I made up on the spot. I also told him that the creatures were extremely active, and he would have to provide an unusually large amount of space per animal if they were to thrive. I sent the message off, and hoped for the worst.
I was still steaming mad the next morning, when Scientist Orzu called at my office. Why not? I’d lost my girl, and spent three weeks in that jungle hell, and all for nothing.