“Run into something?”

A disgruntled, slightly embarrassed LeCleur finished treating the wound with a dose of color-coded epider-mase. “Like hell. A damn muffin bit me.”

His partner grunted. “Like I said: run into something?”

“I did not run into it. I was hunting for burrowing arthropods in the grass over in the east quad when I felt something sharp. I looked back, and there was this little furry shitball gnawing on my leg. I had to swat it off. It bounced once, scrambled back to its feet, and shot off into the grass.” He closed the first-aid kit. “Freakish.”

“An accident, yeah.” Bowman couldn’t keep himself from grinning. “It must have mistaken your leg for the mother of all casquak seeds.”

“It wasn’t the incident that was freaky.” LeCleur was not smiling. “It was the muffin. It had sharp teeth.”

Bowman’s grin faded. “That’s impossible. We’ve examined, not to mention eaten, hundreds of muffins since we’ve been here. Not one of them had sharp teeth. Their chewing mechanism is strictly basal molaric dentition, evolved to grind up and process vegetation.”

His partner shook his head slowly. “I saw the teeth, Jamie. Sharp and pointed. Saw them and felt them. And there was something funny about its eyes, too.”

“That’s a description that’ll look nice and formal in the records. ‘Funny’ how?”

Clearly upset, LeCleur pursed his lips. “I don’t know. I didn’t get a good look. They just struck me as funny.” He tapped his leg above the now hermetized bite. “This didn’t.”

“Well, we know they’re not poisonous.” Bowman turned back to his work. “So it was a freak muffin. A break in the muffin routine. An eclectic muffin. I’m sure it was an isolated incident and won’t happen again.”