Description
Short Science Fiction Collection 048
The Anglers of Arz by Roger D. Aycock
The third night of the _Marco Four’s_ landfall on the moonless Altarian
planet was a repetition of the two before it, a nine-hour intermission
of drowsy, pastoral peace. Navigator Arthur Farrell–it was his turn to
stand watch–was sitting at an open-side port with a magnoscanner ready;
but in spite of his vigilance he had not exposed a film when the
inevitable pre-dawn rainbow began to shimmer over the eastern ocean.
Sunrise brought him alert with a jerk, frowning at sight of two pinkish,
bipedal Arzian fishermen posted on the tiny coral islet a quarter-mile
offshore, their blank triangular faces turned stolidly toward the beach.
"They’re at it again," Farrell called, and dropped to the mossy turf
outside. "Roll out on the double! I’m going to magnofilm this!"
Stryker and Gibson came out of their sleeping cubicles reluctantly,
belting on the loose shorts which all three wore in the balmy Arzian
climate. Stryker blinked and yawned as he let himself through the port,
his fringe of white hair tousled and his naked paunch sweating. He
looked, Farrell thought for the thousandth time, more like a retired
cook than like the veteran commander of a Terran Colonies expedition.
Gibson followed, stretching his powerfully-muscled body like a wrestler
to throw off the effects of sleep. Gibson was linguist-ethnologist of
the crew, a blocky man in his early thirties with thick black hair and
heavy brows that shaded a square, humorless face.
Product ID: 9781776778980
Sku: 9781776778980
