Rabbits Have Long Ears

Rabbits Have Long Ears by Lawrence F. Willard - The computer classified it 'rabbit' and Montresig was not one to argue, long ears or not!

Commander Losure gave orders to his navigator to bring the ship in on the satellite out of sight of the prying telescopes which no doubt existed on such an invitingly green planet. He was a cautious man and didn't intend to lose any more crew members if he could help it. He could tell by the unusually poor handling of the ship that the crew was still demoralized from the brush with the high I.Q. slugs on that last planet which they had approached so directly. They'd lost three men in that scrap, one of them a highly-valued anthropologist. There were only two more of those left in the freeze locker. Too bad it couldn't have been a radio operator, there were plenty of those on ice.

The Commander's thoughts were interrupted by his second officer who entered without the customary military burp.

'I'll forgive you this time, Montresig,' said the Commander, 'but we can't relax regulations now, can we. Anything new to report on this planet?'

'No, Your Loftiness,' said Montresig, after giving a belated burp, 'there's nothing to add to what we already know, but then we've just come to rest on this clinker of a moon. I don't imagine, however, that we've located our long lost ancestors or our mythical home planet. There doesn't seem to be a race in this galaxy that walks upright on two good legs with two arms, two eyes, nose, mouth and other standard equipment.'

'Could be we'll find one this time,' said the Commander. 'We know it's an oxygen planet, and that there are intelligent beings there, judging from the cities we can see and their use of radio.'

'Maybe,' grumbled Montresig, 'but they won't be men. If they're not slugs they'll be talking fish or intellectual spiders, or something equally repulsive.