The Werewolf Principle by Clifford D. Simak

door.
    â€”This one?
    â€”Yes, and be fast about it. Your arms this time, remember. Your body bumping the door might not open it wide enough. It could fall back and catch you.
    Quester squared off, extruding his arms. He bunched his body and flung himself at the door.
    â€”Changer, to the left? The opening on the left?
    â€”Yes. About ten of your body lengths.
    Quester’s outstretched arms struck the door and slapped it open. His body catapulted out into the room. He had a confused sense of startled screaming, of open mouths, of creatures moving swiftly and there was the opening to his left. He pivoted and plunged toward it. A pack of creatures, he saw, were coming toward the opening from the outside—more of the strange creatures who peopled this planet, but draped in different kinds of artificial skins. They opened their mouths to shriek at him and lifted their hands, which held black objects which belched sudden flashes of fire, emitting bitter stenches.
    Something smashed into metal very close to him and made a hollow whining sound and something else chewed with a crunching sound into a piece of wood. Then Quester, unable to stop even if he had wished, was among the creatures and the old war-cry was thundering through his body, his head jerking and slashing, his hands striking out. In among them for an instant, then through them and away, streaking along the front of the great cave which reared into the sky.
    From behind him came sharp reports and some small, but heavy objects which traveled very fast gouged into the floor on which he ran, throwing up fragments of the material of which the floor was made.
    It might be night, he thought, for there was no great star in the sky, although there were many distant stars shining in the sky and that was well, he thought, for it was unthinkable for a planet not to carry with it a canopy of stars.
    And there were smells, but now the smells were different, not as acrid, not as sharp or harsh as had been in the building, but more pleasant, gentle smells.
    Behind him the popping sound continued and tiny things went past him, then he was at the corner of the cave that went up into the sky, and around the corner, still running, remembering that Changer had said that he must run. And enjoying the running, the smooth, sleek slide of muscles, the feeling of the floor on which he ran, solid underneath his pads.
    Now, for the first time since it all had started, he had the chance to gather in the aspects of the planet and it seemed, in many ways, a very busy place. And in other ways very strange, indeed. For who had ever heard of a planet that was floored? The floor ran out from the edge of the cave that reared up into the sky—out into the distance as far as he could see. And everywhere he looked there were other caves, stretching upward from the surface, many of them shining with yellow squares of light, and in front of many of them, and in little areas fenced in on the floor were metallic or stony representations of the planet’s residents. And why, Quester wondered, should things like this exist? Could it be, he wondered, that when these creatures died, they were turned to metal or to stone and left standing wherever they had died? Although that did not seem reasonable, for many of the creatures turned to stone or metal seemed larger than life size. But it was entirely possible, of course, that the creatures came in many different sizes and perhaps only the larger ones were metamorphosed into stone or metal.
    There were not many of the planet’s living residents in evidence, and all those a distance off. But moving on the surface of the floor, and very rapidly, were metallic shapes that had glowing eyes on the front of them and that made a whooshing sound and sent out a blast of air as they streaked along. From these metallic shapes came brainwaves, the sense of a living thing, but a living thing that in many cases had more brains than one—and the