the
Leech
Illustrated by CONNELL
By PHILLIPS BARBEE
A visitor should be fed, butthis one could eat you out ofhouse and home ... literally!
The leech was waiting forfood. For millennia it hadbeen drifting across thevast emptiness of space. Withoutconsciousness, it had spent thecountless centuries in the voidbetween the stars. It was unawarewhen it finally reached a sun.Life-giving radiation flaredaround the hard, dry spore.Gravitation tugged at it.
A planet claimed it, with otherstellar debris, and the leech fell,still dead-seeming within itstough spore case.
One speck of dust among many,the winds blew it around theEarth, played with it, and let itfall.
On the ground, it began to stir.Nourishment soaked in, permeatingthe spore case. It grew—andfed.
Frank Conners came upon the porch and coughedtwice. "Say, pardon me, Professor,"he said.
The long, pale man didn't stirfrom the sagging couch. His horn-rimmedglasses were perched onhis forehead, and he was snoringvery gently.
"I'm awful sorry to disturbyou," Conners said, pushing backhis battered felt hat. "I know it'syour restin' week and all, butthere's something damned funnyin the ditch."
The pale man's left eyebrowtwitched, but he showed no othersign of having heard.
Frank Conners coughed again,holding his spade in one purple-veinedhand. "Didja hear me,Professor?"
"Of course I heard you," Michealssaid in a muffled voice, hiseyes still closed. "You found apixie."
"A what?" Conners asked,squinting at Micheals.
"A little man in a green suit.Feed him milk, Conners."
"No, sir. I think it's a rock."
Micheals opened one eye andfocused it in Conners' general direction.
"I'm awfully sorry about it,"Conners said. Professor Micheals'resting week was a ten-year-oldcustom, and his only eccentricity.All winter Micheals taught anthropology,worked on half adozen committees, dabbled inphysics and chemistry, and stillfound time to write a book a year.When summer came, he wastired.
Arriving at his worked-out NewYork State farm, it was his invariablerule to do absolutely nothingfor a week. He hired FrankConners to cook for that weekand generally make himself useful,while Professor Michealsslept.
During the second week, Michealswould wander around,look at the trees and fish. By thethird week he would be getting atan, reading, repairing the shedsand climbing mountains. At theend of four weeks, he could hardlywait to get back to the city.
But the resting week was sacred.
"I really wouldn't bother youfor anything small," Conners saidapologetically. "But that damnedrock melted two inches off myspade."
Micheals opened both eyes andsat up. Conners held out thespade. The rounded end wassheared cleanly off. Michealsswung himself off the couch andslipped his feet into battered moccasins.
"Let's see this wonder," he said.
The object was lying in theditch at the end of the frontlawn, three feet from the mainroad. It was round, about the sizeof a truck tire, and solid throughout.It was about an inch thick,as far as he could tell, grayishblack and intricately veined.
"Don't touch it," Connerswarned.
"I'm not going to. Let me haveyour spade." Micheals took thespade a