"It looks like you're doing a good job with those things."
 

     "Well, I'm doing my best, Governor," replied Lazvor Thal.  "The podors really are
amazingly docile.  I wonder how they ever survived in the wild at all."  The two men
stood on a hill overlooking the lush, sun-soaked pastures of Thal's ranch.  The shaggy
red, brown, and white podors roamed freely over several acres of deep blue prairie grass.
 

     "It really is amazing how quickly food and textile production has taken off.  On
most planets they import over half of their goods for well over the first decade of
colonization."  Governor Brillian eyed Thal.  "How did you decide to get into ranching
podors, anyway?  Did you do any ranching on another colony?"
 

     "I've never had my own ranch before.  My grandfather used to tend sheep back on
Rilten.  It's a good thing we've got podors here, because I don't think there's anyway that a
sheep would like this prairie grass like the podors do.  Actually, we seem to be pretty
lucky as far as native species go here.  The way things are going, I wouldn't doubt it if we
don't need to bring any Terran species here at all."
 

     The Governor didn't feel the need to mention that over sixty Terran species had
already been introduced into the native environment, not counting the thousands, if not
millions, of microscopic organisms the humans had brought with them just as a matter of
course.  Colonization was always an exercise in delicacy.  As a rule, local environments
always reacted in some way to colonization, and the more species being introduced, the
more there was to go wrong.  A human population could survive without Terran
agricultural species, but that involved either expensive importation, expensive replication
technology, or discovering the combination of local fauna and flora that could provide
humans with a well-balanced diet.  This last option had never been accomplished, and
while it had taken humanity thousands of years to discover on earth, it would surely take
modern technology at least several decades to discover in the best of situations on a
colony.  "I really wonder if those things have any idea what's going on around them,"
mused Governor Brillian as he gazed across several hundred furry, four-legged
abdomens.
 

     "Not 'if', Governor.  How.  Take a look at that one there."  Thal pointed at a dark
tan podor.  Its large disc-like body stood approximately one and a half meters above the
ground.  Two small, tentacle-like appendages stretched out under the canopy of the
creature's body, as it walked over to a patch of tall, reed-like vegetation, knelt on top of
them, and consumed the tops with the single orifice on its underbelly.  "See those little
tentacles?  Those are its only sense organs as far as I can tell."  
 

     The two then turned to walk the trail back to Lazvor Thal's home.  "Wow,"
exclaimed Governor Brillian, "you really do have quite a few podors, don't you."
 
 
 

     Several hours later, Harry Galthob was going about his evening janitorial duties at
the BreatheWell Consolidated factory on the edge of the settlement--the only oxypill
producer on Nopstat.  He was hauling a bag of waste out to a reclimator behind the
building when he first saw them.  Twelve or so podors were shuffling around in the lot
behind the factory.  Aside from a few stuffed and preserved podors that the stores sold to
the occasional wealthy tourist as a footstool, Harry had only seen a podor before once. 
And he had never seen an entire herd of them loitering behind the factory.  He
immediately went inside and called his superior.  
 

     Oxypills, the product made by BreatheWell Consolidated, were drugs which
allowed human lungs to extract extra oxygen from the air they breathed.  Nopstat was
only one of a sizable number of colonies on which they were required, although each
planet generally needed its own specialized formula.  There were also a number of other
colonies which had higher concentrations of oxygen in their atmospheres than earth's,
and drugs which inhibited the bloodstream's intake of oxygen were required.  And there
were a larger number of colonies on which colonists needed drugs to immunize
themselves against some particular harmful gas or another.  Out of all of the planets in
the galaxy, only a few hundred could be easily colonized by humans.  And out of all of
those, on fewer than fifteen of those could humans survive without some form of drugs to
subtly alter their biochemistry.  BreatheWell's monopoly on the colony would have been
a bit disconcerting to any Nopstatian, were it not for the strict laws and price controls
regulating the industry.
 

     When Harry Galthob's supervisor arrived at the factory forty minutes later, there
were over thirty podors outside.  "Harry!"
 

     "Over here, Finnly," Harry shouted from the doorway.
 

     "I thought you said there were only ten!"
 

     "More have been coming!"
 

     Finnly made his way from his auto to the factory.  He walked slowly through the
podors without incident.  "Where the heck are they coming from?"
 

     "I'm not really sure.  They seem to be coming from the west, somewhere."
 

     "I'd better call the guard to come and help take care of this mess."  Finnly went
inside and called the Nopstat Colonial Guard, the colony's security, military and policing
body.  
 

     "Hello.  I'm Finnly Harris.  I work out at the BreatheWell plant.  Thirty or more
podors have waltzed right onto the factory property and I was wondering if you could
send a few people over to help me move them off of the property.  Uh-huh.  What? 
How's that?  Whoa?  Really?  The Governor you say?  Oh, well yeah.  Sure.  Oh yeah,
that's definitely more important.  Ok.  Yeah, I understand.  Ok.  Thank you.  Goodbye."
 

     "What's up, Finnly?" Harry asked.
 

     "The Governor has gone missing.  They said that he had been going on some
rounds, visiting a few people in the community, and nobody has seen him since three in
the afternoon.  That's really weird."
 

     "That does sound pretty odd," agreed Harry.  "So what did they say about our
podor problem?"
 

     "Well, basically, they have all of their people out looking for the Governor, so
we're on our own for awhile.  I'd better call the boss man."  Finnly attempted to call the
factory manager, but before he could connect, the line filled with static.  "Huh.  That's
really odd.  There must be a little interference with the satellite uplink.  I'll wait a few
minutes and try--hey.  Did you hear that Harry?"
 

     Harry was already running to the factory floor.  When he got there, there were
three podors slowly roaming around already, and more were quickly flowing in through
the open side door.  "Didn't you close the door?" shouted Finnly.
 

     "I thought I did!"  Harry ran to the door, but didn't manage to get it closed before
at least six more podors were inside.  The podors that were inside walked around slowly,
not paying any attention to the humans.  
 

     "I'm going to try to call some of the workers down here to help us get rid of these
guys.  I don't think two people can handle this many of these damn things."  With that,
Finnly returned to the office, "try to keep an eye on those things, and check all the doors,"
he yelled to Harry from inside the room.
 

     After several minutes he returned to the factory floor.  He didn't see Harry
anywhere, but the factory was a large place.  "Harry!  The communications link is still
down!  Hey Harry!"
 

     "Over here!"  The reply came from somewhere near the packaging area, halfway
across the factory.
 

     "Holy shit!  Harry!  One of the podors got onto the tower!"  Finnly ran up a nearby
set of stairs leading to the catwalk.  Across the catwalk, a podor was slowly pacing in an
open area lined with controls for the factory.  Finnly was going to attempt to herd it back
down to the factory floor.  When he got halfway across the catwalk, something strange
happened.  The podor wrapped one of its big legs around a control panel and began
yanking on it.  "Damn it!  Hey Harry!  Get over here!  Quick!"  
 

     Finnly ran at full steam towards the podor, but in several seconds it had ripped the
panel off of its foundation by an amazing act of brute force.  It let it drop to the catwalk
floor and wrapped two of its multi-jointed legs around another panel.  As it began to tug
on this one, it let out a fierce, high pierced "shriek" that seemed to last forever.  This was
echoed by other podors across the factory floor.  All around Finnly came the noises of
cracking plastic and bending metal as the other podors let loose in a mad attack on
machinery and control consoles across the factory.  Finnly could barely hear Harry's
scream from across the factory.  "They've gone nuts, Finnly!  What the hell!"
 

     Harry ran towards the nearest podor.  It was tearing pieces off of a machine that
was used in the final packaging of the oxypills.  He picked up a long piece of pipe that it
had already tossed aside and began hitting the mad podor with it.  The podor hardly
seemed to notice, and continued it's attack on the machine.  Harry swung at it a few more
times, before there was the loud sound of stampeding feet coming across the factory
floor.  Harry ran to the wide aisleway where he saw twenty or more podors running
directly towards him, and a large number more spreading out throughout the factory. 
Somehow, Harry managed to avoid injury as they all set themselves against the
machinery, and, by and large, destroyed it.  Harry worked his way as quickly as he could
around the raging beasts and towards the door.  
 
 
 
 

     An hour later, the BreatheWell Consolidated factory manager, Glank Yedleton,
along with Finnly, and a balding man named Herble Sliff, the colony's communication
link manager, walked into Nopstat's communication link station.  The link station ran all
of the communication lines within the colony, and ran all communication going out
through its uplink to the satellite communication array.  "I really don't know how the
communication lines could go out for so long," Sliff was saying for perhaps the tenth
time since Finnly and Yedleton had picked him up from his house.  Yedleton was getting
sick of hearing it, too.
 

     "Look here, Herble, I don't really give a slarton's poojab why the hell the
communication lines are down!  All I want is a line to Falton Beta, so I can send for some
corporate guard to get rid of those damn podors," Yedleton was reddening as his voice
rose, "and to get a shipment of surplus oxypills, and to get more construction materials,
AND", he paused and sighed, "some Anplaktian Bubble-Scotch."
 

     "I'll do what I can," Herble timidly squeaked as he scuttled off to see if he could
find the problem.
 

     "I just can't believe it, Finnly," Yedleton turned to his employee.  "Those damn
things have always been so passive.  Why in the world would they do this?  It seems
almost...calculated."  Finnly just shrugged.  "I think we completely underestimated them,"
Yedleton concluded as his thoughts turned to the young stuffed podor he rested his feet
on every evening.
 

     Finnly and Yedleton heard a scream from the next room, "no!"  Herble ran in,
"someone broke into the station.  The transceiver is completely destroyed!"
 

     It was a month before a routine import ship landed on Nopstat and the rest of the
galaxy learned that something was amiss.  The ship took away around a hundred people
who were suffering health problems due to a lack of adequate oxygen.  Oxypills were
immediately sent for, and there were, in all, perhaps fifty casualties due to this incident,
but the colony was abandoned, and all three thousand colonists left for other colonies--a
few even returning to good old Terra.
 

     A few decades later, Nopstat was again colonized.  This time, however, on a less
temperate area of the world, where there was virtually no local fauna in existence.  Due
to some freak action, whether designed or accidental, several species of Terran hare were
rele ased and they spread across the planet.  Within a hundred years more or less all native
fauna had been starved into extinction.