Peter Hubbard stood at the head of the kitchen table rubbing his cheek as if checking whether he needed a shave. It would become a familiar gesture to the group. He measured his words, turning his head often to Wanda Lindstrom for corroboration. His report, spoken as emotionlessly as possible, sounded improbable even to his own ears. The woman biologist nodded her confirmation earnestly with each point he brought out. The room was charged with the kind of strain pervading a surgeon’s office when a family is receiving the results of a biopsy for cancer. What kind of cancer was afflicting Yarkie?

Hubbard came to the point directly. “To start with,” he began, “you ought to know that I told Dr. Lindstrom of certain suspicions in my mind from the moment I examined Captain Johnson’s dog’s ear.” Bonnie winced visibly. “I didn’t want to disturb the rest of you prematurely, but even without a microscope it was clear to me that something other than rats had attacked the dog.

“Now under the microscope we see plainly that the tissue was cut by sawteeth, and—” Hubbard paused for emphasis “—we have now confirmed that the shearing action is not up and down, the way most animals bite, but side to side.”

The scientist spaced the last words, looking squarely into the eyes of his worried listeners, and added meaningfully, “Side to side is the way insects like cockroaches chew!” He paused again. “I had considered that possibility right away, but I was put off and puzzled by the size of the bites on the ear. You see, normally, cockroaches cannot open their mouths very wide. We do have cases, especially in the tropics, where roaches have attacked animals and even humans, but it has been only a small nibbling action, like small nips on the earlobes or lips of a sleeping child. Very small bites. Tiny, in fact. Nothing like the rips I discovered on the dog’s ear.”

Bonnie could not control the cold the man’s words stirred in her body. Elizabeth tightened her grasp around the slight shoulders.

“Now that we have studied the two specimens the sheriff and his men brought back—” Hubbard interrupted himself to observe, “We haven’t heard that story, but I’m sure it wasn’t easy.” He paused another moment. The three men exchanged pale looks. Their mouths were grim. It was the scientist’s time to speak, not theirs.

Hubbard resumed, but his voice lost its scientific tone and became almost grating in his own clear perplexity. “I must tell you that these cockroaches we have examined here are decidedly, and very dangerously, unlike anything ever seen or heard of.”

Stephen Scott asked, argumentatively, “You mean they’re not just big water bugs?”