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CRITICAL CRIMINOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES

Wildlife Trafficking
A Deconstruction of the Crime,
Victims and Offenders

Tanya Wyatt

Second Edition
 Critical Criminological Perspectives

Series Editors
Reece Walters, Faculty of Law, Deakin University,
Burwood, VIC, Australia
Deborah H. Drake, Department of Social Policy &
Criminology, The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK
The Palgrave Critical Criminological Perspectives book series aims to
showcase the importance of critical criminological thinking when exam-
ining problems of crime, social harm and criminal and social justice.
Critical perspectives have been instrumental in creating new research
agendas and areas of criminological interest. By challenging state defined
concepts of crime and rejecting positive analyses of criminality, critical
criminological approaches continually push the boundaries and scope
of criminology, creating new areas of focus and developing new ways
of thinking about, and responding to, issues of social concern at local,
national and global levels. Recent years have witnessed a flourishing
of critical criminological narratives and this series seeks to capture the
original and innovative ways that these discourses are engaging with
contemporary issues of crime and justice. For further information on
the series and to submit a proposal for consideration, please get in touch
with the Editor: Josephine Taylor, [email protected].

More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14932
 Tanya Wyatt

Wildlife Trafficking
A Deconstruction of the Crime,
Victims and Offenders

Second Edition
Tanya Wyatt
Department of Social Sciences
Northumbria University
Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK

ISSN 2731-0604 ISSN 2731-0612 (electronic)

Critical Criminological Perspectives
ISBN 978-3-030-83752-5 ISBN 978-3-030-83753-2 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83753-2

1st edition: © Palgrave Macmillan UK 2013

2nd edition: © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2022
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher,
whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation,
reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other
physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer
software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt
from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this
book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the
authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained
herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with
regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland
AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
 Preface

Eight years to the day, I was sitting in an office in the Department of

Politics and International Relations on the campus of The Australian
National University finishing the first edition of this book. I had the
pleasure of being a visiting research fellow for Professor Lorraine Elliott’s
Transnational Environmental Crime project. For the second edition, I
am sat on my couch, back in the Northeast of England wondering
if the next stage of the easing of lockdown restrictions will prove to
be too soon. In the intervening time between these two moments, I
have continued to be immersed in the world of wildlife trafficking.
I have attended two of the global conferences on the illegal wildlife
trade (the London 2014 and 2018 conferences), been the rapporteur
for the UK Foreign and Commonwealth and US State Department
event on Wildlife Trafficking as a Security Issue at Wilton Park in
2015, conducted years of research on wildlife trade and trafficking
between Mexico and the EU with Dr Inez Arroyo-Quiroz, spoken at
and attended dozens of events including a UK House of Lords event to
launch the Global Initiative to End Wildlife Crime spearheaded by the
former CITES Secretary General John Scanlon, contributed to numerous

v
vi Preface

reports, written dozens of articles and book chapters, and been awarded
a leadership fellowship to research CITES (where I attended a Confer-
ence of the Parties and wrote a book about CITES implementation and
compliance) all whilst being accompanied by my dog, Gobi, who we
brought home not long after returning to England from Australia in
2013.
I have supported curbing, ending wildlife trafficking because I believe
that non-humans can be victims of crime (in addition to all the other
ways the crime is significant). I have never doubted that non-humans
feel emotions, including pain, but also joy. Spending each day with
my furry, lively, willful dog-friend has reinforced to me how true this
is and certainly not just dogs, but the diversity of non-humans. But
more than deserving to be recognised as victims, non-humans need to
be recognised as members of multispecies societies. Being a member
of a society means having your interests included in the deliberations
about the functioning of communities. For me, representing the inter-
ests of non-humans in our political processes is how we must go about
repairing our relationship to nature and the environment; to stop the
next pandemic; to stop the downward spiral of the biodiversity crisis
and climate change. As we work towards this goal of representing the
non-human, the range of stakeholders in the criminal justice, conserva-
tion, governmental, academic, and private sectors must continue to try
to collaborate to better understand wildlife trafficking and to improve
prevention, detection, disruption, prosecution, and so forth of this green
crime.
This second book is the ongoing compilation of the years of research I
have conducted, the thousands of articles and media reports that I have
read and the thousands of conversations that I have had with police,
governmental and intergovernmental officials, NGO staff, and academics
since 2005. The intention for the first edition was and for this second
edition remains to provide a wide overview of wildlife trafficking and
its significance, complexity, and diversity; to continue to move forward
the conceptualisation and understanding of victims and offenders; to
 Preface vii

further the knowledge of how prevention strategies and policy interven-

tions should be approached; and to advocate for more political will and,
now, for more voices to be heard—including the wildlife—in order to
end this urgent threat to many of the species of the globe.

Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK Tanya Wyatt

 Acknowledgements

I have talked to and learned from hundreds of people about wildlife traf-
ficking, and I am grateful to each and every one of them for their time
and insight. I continue to gain understanding from each of these inter-
actions and am thankful that so many diverse people from the range
of occupations and positions are working to reduce the illegal trade in
wildlife. Let’s all keep up the fight.
And thank you to my dearest Ed for your unwavering encouragement
and support and for nurturing Gobi to be an amazing companion. He,
and you, inspire me to keep trying to make the world a little bit better.

ix
 Contents

1 Introduction 1
2 Contemporary Patterns 27
3 Significance 57
4 Construction of Harm and Victimhood 91
5 Construction of Blame and Offending 125
6 The Fight Against Wildlife Trafficking 159
7 Transnational Collaborations 199
8 Reflecting on Wildlife Trafficking 231

References 255
Index 285

xi
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 Acronyms

ASEAN–WEN Association of South East Asian Nations–Wildlife Enforce-

ment Network
CAWT Coalition Against Wildlife Trafficking
CITES Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of
Wild Fauna and Flora
EIA Environmental Investigation Agency
GRASP Great Ape Survival Project
ICCWC International Consortium on Combatting Wildlife Crime
IFAW International Fund for Animal Welfare
INTERPOL International Criminal Police Commission
IUCN International Union for the Conservation of Nature
IWT Illegal Wildlife Trade
NGO Non-Governmental Organisation
SAWEN South Asia Wildlife Enforcement Network
SSN Species Survival Network
TRAFFIC Trade Records Analysis of Flora and Fauna in Commerce
UNEP United Nations Environment Programme
UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Conservation
Organisation
UNODC United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime

xiii
xiv Acronyms

USFWS United States Fish and Wildlife Service

WCO World Customs Organisation
WCS Wildlife Conservation Society
WWF World Wildlife Fund
 List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 Illegal items reported to CITES 1975–2018 13

Fig. 2.1 Illegal Wildlife reported to CITES by region from 1975
to 2019 29
Fig. 2.2 Illegal imports reported to CITES from 1975 to 2019
broken down by region 30
Fig. 2.3 Illegal exports reported to CITES from 1975 to 2019
broken down by region 31
Fig. 2.4 Categories of demand 33
Fig. 2.5 Illegal wildlife products with over 1000 items reported
to CITES from 1975 to 2019 47
Fig. 3.1 Opportunities for corruption within the criminal
justice system and illegal wildlife trade* (**see Table
3.1 for details on the forms of corruption. *Numbers
indicate points of intervention—see Table 2 for details.
Not all stages take place for every crime or trade) 75
Fig. 4.1 The hierarchy of victims from an anthropocentric
framework 108
Fig. 5.1 The hierarchy of offending 147
Fig. 6.1 Three missions driving the stakeholders combatting
wildlife trafficking 190

xv
 1
Introduction

Since the first edition of this book in 2013, the landscape for wildlife
trafficking has noticeably changed. The illegal wildlife trade has become
a topic of global discussion and the focus of high-level political events as
well as numerous international law enforcement operations and funded
programmes to disrupt and reduce this black market. Despite these
laudable efforts, however, the wildlife, who are the target of wildlife traf-
ficking, continue to slide towards extinction, some—like the pangolin—
more quickly than ever. In this second edition, I once again provide
a global overview of the state of knowledge of wildlife trafficking, the
victims, and the offenders as well as of the efforts to prevent and detect
this crime. This time I include the most updated initiative and actors
working to combat wildlife trafficking.
I believe this is a timely and important update for two reasons.
First, as mentioned, even though substantial efforts are ongoing to
decrease the trafficking of wildlife, it continues to threaten the survival
of many species, which then affects ecosystems and people. In this
sense, it remains critical to successfully and effectively tackle the illegal
wildlife trade. Second, wildlife trade and trafficking have come under
even greater scrutiny because of the coronavirus pandemic that is
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1
Switzerland AG 2022
T. Wyatt, Wildlife Trafficking, Critical Criminological Perspectives,
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2 T. Wyatt

reaching record-breaking levels at the time of writing. The likely connec-

tion between the pandemic and wildlife is transfer of disease from
wildlife, probably a bat, possibly to another species, and then to humans
(Kimbrough 2020; Lu et al. 2020). Thus, wildlife trade, which is legal,
and wildlife trafficking, which is illegal, both may play a crucial part in
the public health in society. This is not a new revelation. In the first
edition of this book, I spoke about the security implications of wildlife
trafficking, including that of zoonotic diseases that pass from wildlife to
humans. The situation has only become more urgent and visible since
the outbreak of SARS-CoV2.
It should be reiterated that trading wildlife is not a new phenomenon.
Humans have been reliant on wildlife for food and shelter throughout
history. It could be said then that the use of wildlife—both non-
human animals and plants—is engrained within human cultures. This
relationship with wildlife has led and is currently connected to the
overexploitation of species. Historically, there is evidence of this overex-
ploitation. For instance, in the US in the 1800s, both Atlantic Sturgeon
and Shortnose Sturgeon were hunted for meat and caviar to such levels
that by the early 1900s the populations had dropped severely and fishing
was greatly reduced (Sweka et al. 2006). Populations began to recover
and by 1980 commercial fishing operations of Atlantic sturgeon were
again at high levels (Sweka et al. 2006). This only lasted until 1996
when populations again fell, and a moratorium was placed on commer-
cial and recreational fishing (Sweka et al. 2006). Fishing of the Shortnose
Sturgeon only lasted until 1967, when it was listed on the Endangered
Species Preservation Act (American Museum of Natural History 2010).
Similarly, in New Zealand with the arrival of Europeans in the 1830s,
pervasive logging of the native Kauri trees led to their populations greatly
dwindling (Terra Nature 2003). Local construction, the exporting of
logs, clearing for agriculture, and fires have resulted in less than one per
cent of the original forests surviving (Terra Nature 2003). Yet despite
the clear loss of these forests, Kauri trees were not protected until 1973
(Terra Nature 2003).
Regulations and laws to curb such destruction of wildlife have been
in existence for hundreds of years, although in the examples above, none
were put into place until quite late (Lyster 1985). Even with these laws
 1 Introduction 3

though, humans continue to threaten the survival of other species, largely

through consumption. As Lyster (1985) argues, a critical juncture has
been reached where humans now have the capability to decimate entire
populations of wildlife and because of this destructive capacity, more
intense initiatives at the international level must be undertaken. As will
be detailed, measures to protect species from extinction are being taken,
but regardless of this, consumption of wildlife thwarts the restrictions
and still threatens the survival of many species. This book will explore the
intricacies that the illegal trade in wildlife encompasses and the current
international efforts to stop this devastating green crime.
To begin, this introductory chapter provides the background infor-
mation regarding the illegal wildlife trade and the green criminological
perspective that sets the foundation for the entire text. First, the issue
of definition is addressed detailing all the aspects of the trafficking
operation, i.e., poaching, harvesting, collecting, transporting/smuggling,
exporting, importing, processing, advertising, and selling. An overview of
the non-human animals and plants (and their products and derivatives),
who have been and are being trafficked is given as well as the estimated
numbers that are trafficked. This leads to a discussion of the challenges
in estimating both the scale and the profit of the illegal wildlife trade
due to the differing value of the ‘commodity’ along the smuggling chain
and the particular dynamics of the dark figure of this crime. The green
criminological context in which the book is framed is then laid out. The
introduction concludes with an outline of the entire book, with brief
details of the contents of each chapter.

Definitions
The illegal wildlife trade is a multi-stage crime and smuggling operation,
which encompasses numerous activities that will each be defined here.
Wildlife is taken to comprise all non-human animals and plants that are
not companion or domesticated animals. This means that domestic ‘pets’
are not wildlife, nor are livestock, but that zoo animals and others that
are being farmed, yet are not truly domesticated, are also wildlife. This
would include bears and tigers, for instance, which are now the focus
4 T. Wyatt

of farming initiatives. Wildlife does include all plants and trees as well
as propagated individuals. Recently, a colleague and I have formulated
this more comprehensive and succinct definition of wildlife: “all non-
human animals, plants, and fungi which form part of a country’s natural
environment or which are visitors in a wild or captured state” (Nurse and
Wyatt 2020: 5). We note as do others (Beirne 2018; Sollund 2019) that
referring to other species as ‘non-human animals’ is unsatisfactory in that
it defines other beings in relation to humans, but we have not come up
with a sufficient replacement.
In the illegal wildlife trade, wildlife is first poached, collected, or
harvested. Poaching is usually conceptualised as the act of killing the
non-human animal to use it in one of the various ways that will be
detailed below. However, Kurland et al. (2018) also use poaching to refer
to the targeted cutting of ‘burls’—growths on trees used to make furni-
ture and other products; thus, poaching can refer to plants as well. In
the case of non-human animals, the killing is accomplished in a variety
of ways, depending upon the species. Others refer to wildlife killing as
murder, thus bringing the act in line with crimes against humans (Beirne
2018; Sollund 2019). Poaching of game meat, such as deer, sometimes
involves the use of dogs to flush out the prey so that they can then be
shot. Other non-human animals are also killed by guns. For instance,
elephant and rhinoceros poaching often involves weapons, though in
some instances rather than rifles or shotguns, tranquiliser guns are used
to only subdue the individual, and then the tusk or horn is taken whilst
they are still alive. Poaching can also involve snares and traps that either
kill the non-human animal or hold them until they can be killed. This is
the case when poaching furbearing mammals and ungulates for tradi-
tional medicines. Pits are also used to capture and then transport or
kill terrestrial non-human animals. Poison bait is another way of killing
wildlife, who are enticed by the meat in which the poison is placed; this
has been seen in the Greater Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area
where vultures are poisoned and then used in traditional Africa medicine
(Gore et al. 2020). Fish and marine mammals are obviously caught with
nets and hooks. There are undoubtedly other means by which wildlife is
poached in addition to those listed here.
 1 Introduction 5

However, not all non-human animals (or plants and fungi) are killed
within the illegal wildlife trade. Collecting or kidnapping (Sollund 2019)
occurs when wildlife is taken alive, again to be used in various ways.
Often the live wildlife is captured with nets or traps and then transported
or smuggled further along the smuggling chain. For some species, the
young or eggs are targeted for ease of capture and smuggling. For some
non-human animals, like the pangolin, being kidnapped is unfortunately
quite simple as they roll into a protective ball to escape predators. If that
predator is a human, they can easily place the pangolin in a sack or ship-
ping container to be transported to a market or restaurant. Plants, too,
are taken alive and then smuggled to their final destination. Harvesting
refers to the routine killing of non-human animals or plants in order to
supply both the legal and illegal markets. Harvesting is often the term
used when trappers hunt furbearers. It is also the language used when
cutting timber—trees are harvested, both legally and illegally, to be used
for building houses and furniture, for fuel, and so forth.
The language defined here is the terminology typically seen in texts
and heard in the media. As I have alluded to above, the words chosen
desensitise the listener or reader from the harm that is taking place. Non-
human animals are ‘killed’ or ‘harvested’ rather than ‘murdered’—a word
reserved only for human victims. Non-human animals are also ‘collected’
or ‘captured’, but, again, as Sollund (2011, 2019) proposes, this is akin
to kidnapping and can certainly be referred to as such. The vocabulary
employed immediately sets non-human animals and plants apart from
people and makes them the ‘other’, thus detaching them from humans.
To avoid this distancing, insensitive or ‘othering’ terms will not be used if
possible. This is also the reason for using the term ‘non-human animal’,
though as I said it is not completely satisfactory. After all, humans are
animals too and adopting this term is intended to remove the separation
that humans have created between themselves and other species.
This defines only the first point of the smuggling operation. Once
taken, either alive or dead, the wildlife is then transported further
towards the market and final buyer. This may be direct to a market,
or for wildlife who is used to make products, to a processing place,
which will be discussed shortly. In either case, the transportation may
6 T. Wyatt

take place internally within one country, transnationally between adja-

cent countries, or internationally between countries long distances from
each other. The transnational and international transportation is where
the smuggling occurs, as the wildlife is secreted across borders, avoiding
proper Customs and Borders inspections. If headed for a market or for a
processing facility, either way, depending upon the tactics employed, this
may involve fraudulent documentation. One aspect of this may be to
mislabel the species, so documentation shows one species who is allowed
to be traded when in fact the actual wildlife is another similar species. In
these and other instances with fraudulent documentation, what is actu-
ally illegal then gets transferred into the legal sphere, or is laundered.
This means that the wildlife is then not physically hidden, but made to
appear legitimate.
In international instances of smuggling, the forged documentation
must account for either or both the export and the import of the wildlife.
This is particularly the case when this involves a species listed within
the appendices of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered
Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which requires an export
permit for Appendix II species and an export and import permit for
Appendix I species. Therefore, the country of origin of the wildlife must
allow the export of the wildlife, and for Appendix I species, the desti-
nation country must also have given permission for the wildlife to be
imported. In cases of transiting through a country, CITES species will
need a re-export permit indicating they have been transferred between
countries. For the domestic wildlife trade, the documentation required
varies greatly by country and in some cases may not be required at
all. Many countries, though, require hunting permits for non-human
animals to be killed. This is also often the case for cutting trees or
collecting plants and fungi on public land; some government agency
most likely has to give permission for the trees, plants, or maybe fungi
to be taken.
When forged or fraudulent documentation is not the tactic employed,
the smuggling will entail much more involved means of secreting the
wildlife during their journey. Again, this is largely species dependent, but
these tactics are known to be used: secret compartments on planes, trains,
boats, and vehicles; mixed in with other cargo; hidden on people’s bodies
 1 Introduction 7

or within their luggage; shipped by post; and sent in diplomatic post that
is not subject to Custom’s inspections. Wildlife is not always smuggled
on its own; the connections to other crimes, such as drug trafficking, are
becoming more widely known (see Van Uhm et al. 2021; Felbab-Brown
2017 among others).
The above list of smuggling tactics is undoubtedly not a complete list
of strategies; as the illegal wildlife trade operates in the ‘underworld’,
there are certainly techniques for smuggling that have yet to be uncov-
ered. It can be seen, though, that how the smuggling takes place is largely
determined by whether the wildlife is alive or dead. Live wildlife is much
more difficult to smuggle and perhaps more conducive to the use of
fraudulent paperwork.
As mentioned, for some of the products that are obtained from
wildlife, a processing stage takes place. Processing is the alteration of
the wildlife into a sellable product. This might involve grinding down
rhinoceros horn to make medicine or carving ivory into a dagger or deco-
rative item. Furs and skins must be dried or tanned and sewn into fabrics,
clothing, accessories, etc. Timber must be cut and sawn into boards.
Again, this is very species dependent and it is also regionally dependent.
For example, elephant tusks are taken in Africa, but will be carved in
the Middle or Far East. Fur is poached in Russia and also dried and
made into clothing there, so the processing place varies with the species
who is being trafficked and therefore may occur before or after smug-
gling. Again, the language typically used here is very telling. Wildlife is
‘processed’ into ‘products’ removing their individuality and sentience and
placing them as material objects on the capitalist market.
More of the intricacies of this process will be teased out as examples
are explored throughout this book, but needless to say it is a complicated
process with many factors at play. After being smuggled to the desti-
nation, the wildlife or wildlife product is then sold to the final buyer,
who may have in fact made a specific order for a particular species, or
the wildlife will be put up for sale at a market. This may be a phys-
ical location or a website online. The International Fund for Animal
Welfare (IFAW) in the UK has been studying the role of the Internet in
the illegal wildlife trade since 2005. In their first one-week online inten-
sive survey of websites, they found over 9000 wild non-human animals
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Other documents randomly have
different content
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The God-
Plllnk
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
you are located before using this eBook.

Title: The God-Plllnk

Author: Jerome Bixby

Illustrator: Bruno

Release date: September 12, 2016 [eBook #53034]

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Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GOD-PLLLNK

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 THE GOD-PLLLNK

BY JEROME BIXBY

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from

Worlds of Tomorrow December 1963
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Astronauts and cosmonauts! When you finally
reach
Mars, please be very careful what you look
like!

In the shadows of a crater-wall on Phobos, moon of Mars, Grg and

Yrl waited to greet the God.
If the God continued its present rate of approach, it would land
within moments.
Grg and Yrl had journeyed all night, with their eyes on that distant
glinting speck in the sky. Over cold-crusted sand dunes and jagged
crater walls they had flowed, crept, bounded, oozed, toward the spot
where the God must land if its course held true.
Grg was a Fsgh, which is the equivalent of High Priest, Yrl was a
Ffssgghh, or Much Higher Priest. The best wishes of their people had
gone with them on their tremendous mission.
Now, at the place, they trembled in every tentacle as they peered
upward. The rust-red orb of Mars rode the black horizon.
Mars was, as Grg and Yrl had learned from their Elders and now
taught their Youngers, the stern Seeing-All Eye of It Who Was the
Universe.
From that great Eye, a day ago, had sprung a shining Messenger, an
Emissary, a God that must be coming on a purposeful visit.
It had been detected at the half-way point of its trip. But there could
be no doubt regarding its origin, its nature, its destination—
For, in the matter of form, the God was a close replica of Grg and Yrl
—of all the creatures of their race! It was octopidal, with sinewy
double tentacles, and a thinking trunk, and a reproduction pouch!
The only significant difference was that the God gleamed
mysteriously, as if its angular, hard-line representation of normal
form were cast in shining stone. As it flew it reflected starlight—and
the red glow of the Universal Eye behind it—from its sleek surfaces.
Grg and Yrl blinked their own dull-surfaced, astronomically far-
sighted, rust-red eyes at each other in supreme excitement and
anticipation.
What would the God tell them? What would it reveal? Would it
divulge the Cosmic Secret? Would it tell them the place and destiny
of their lowly race? Had it come to punish them for not being good
enough, for over-reproducing, for worshipping improperly?
From a selfish standpoint, it might even tell them how to get rid of
the plllnk—a subject of constant prayer.
How smoothly it flew! While Grg and Yrl and their people could
bound about with a great agility in Phobos' light gravity, they could
not fly.
"How wonderful it would be to fly," said Yrl.
"Perhaps," said Grg, "we have been found ready to be taught!"
Then Grg twitched as a plllnk bit him, just under the front left
double-tentacle. He combed the light fur there, found the plllnk, and
shredded it, casting the pieces round-about so that no two of them
might combine to form another plllnk.
How wonderful it would be also if the God could tell them how to get
rid of the itching, crawling, parasitic plllnk, whose bite, in sufficient
numbers, was often fatal!...
The God began to land.
It shot red flame downward from its mouth, on the underside of its
gleaming body. Red flickers and sharp-edged black shadows danced
about the two who waited below. They shrank back, fearful that the
display might be a disapproving communication—yet they held their
ground, knowing they had lived good lives and deserved no
condemnation on any score they could imagine.
The God lowered, on its belching tongue of flame—the flame that
seemed a tiny part, a sliver, of the Universal Eye that Watched.
Strange marks were on the side of the God's body. They were: 1st
MARS EXPEDITION—U. S. SPACE FORCE—PLANET-TO-SATELLITE
CREWBOAT NO. 2.

The last few moments of the God's descent were quite rapid.
Simultaneously, the darting red flames seemed to lessen in intensity
and length. Then, at the second of impact, they brightened again to
previous power—but too late. The impact was hard.
Grg and Yrl gasped as one of the God's double-tentacles buckled,
crumpled, with a glinting of shiny-hard material. The flames
stopped.
The God, unable to remain erect with its injury, slowly toppled. Its
body thudded silently, stirring pumice dust. It was motionless.
Grg and Yrl stared at each other.
Was the God fatally injured? Dying? Dead? (For a broken tentacle
meant that fluids would seep out, and soon the dry-death would
occur.)
The God stirred.
It braced two sets of tentacles against the ground, as if trying to
push itself erect. The effort was not successful. Again it was
motionless. The two double-tentacles remained outstretched,
however—and they pointed at the shadows where Grg and Yrl
waited and watched.
Grg and Yrl sighed in relief.
The God had assumed conversation-position.
It must have healed its broken tentacle—truly a God! Soon it would
be as good as new; for otherwise, agony would forbid conversation.
It was ready to address them. Now.
This was the greatest moment of Grg's and Yrl's lives.
They waited for the God to speak.
It was silent.
A long time passed. The God remained motionless, though in
conversation-position, and silent. A very long time passed.
Then a tiny hole appeared in the God's side. It grew larger—larger—
and then it stopped growing larger.
Something appeared at the hole. It paused, then dropped to the
surface of Phobos, where it began to crawl about.
It bore considerable resemblance to a plllnk, except for its shiny-
wrinkled grey skin (plllnks were purple.) And this thing was huge—
Huge. It was one-fifth the size of the God's body.
Caught by horror, and fearing the worst, Grg and Yrl waited for the
God to speak.
(Damn, John Cotter was thinking. That was a neat bit of sloppiness,
that landing.... Carruthers will chew me out and in again! Pause:
Holy cats, I hope the radio isn't busted, or I'll have a helluva wait
before they follow up and find me!...)

The God was dead.

Killed by the giant plllnk—a scourge from which, evidently, even the
Gods were not spared. The huge plllnk, even now creeping around—
wrinkle-skinned and detestable, its coloration the same as the God's;
the most loathsome sight imaginable ... a god-plllnk!
Grg and Yrl moved into view, from the shadows of the crater wall.
Their thinking trunks tingled with misery, sorrow, bitter anger and
disappointment.
The plllnk stopped, having sensed them. Then it darted for the hole
it had eaten in the God.
Yrl moved to intercept it. The plllnk changed course and headed
swiftly up a sand dune. With a great bound, impelled by outrage, Yrl
was upon it.
While Grg touched tentacles with the dead God, in reverent
mourning, in terrible sorrow, in loss, in supplication, Yrl shredded the
god-plllnk.

Two days later, a second God was detected. It silently circled Phobos
from the Universal Eye.
It did not land. It silently circled Phobos, and then returned to the
Eye.
Within the day, it was back, in the company of eleven other Gods.
They landed. Joyfully, mortals went forth to meet them.
It was quite a battle while it lasted.
Joy quickly ended, as the Gods died one by one, each of them
showing the holes eaten in their sides by the insatiable plllnks.
Likewise, eventually, died all the plllnks, which presumably had killed
the Gods. They fought with strange white flares and crackling blue
flashes, which only tickled the hides of the faithful. Then they were
shredded.
Religious beliefs on Phobos underwent certain basic changes. Such
as: the Gods, or at least their Messengers, were known not to be
immortal.
Nor were the special variety of plllnk which afflicted them....
On Earth, twenty years afterward, word is anxiously awaited of the
4th Mars Expedition.

END
 *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GOD-PLLLNK
***

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