Noel M. Loomis

“ From some marsh-bamboo and some wire-vines he formed a shield. By that time it was midnight. He turned his light on the pool where the saurian had been, and shuddered. The water was dull red, and alive with creatures fighting each other to get to the carcass. The surface was covered with flying things, some small, some huge, all fighting, fighting. Life on Venus was an eternal, bloody fight. This slaughter, once started, would go on for weeks, until the fighting creatures in this immediate area of the swamp were exhausted.
Grant snapped off the light as clouds of flying things arose. ”

“ Relegar squealed. His two eyes almost exploded in a rage of red. He wasn't permanently injured—he would grow a new leg—but he was furious because he dared not come close to the shield. The radiation would paralyze him within a couple of seconds. Grant saw his body sag a little on the corner where the leg had been, and then he had one of those flashes of intuition that every being had to have, to live long in the swamp. He knew how to win this fight. He trained the heat-gun on the second leg on the same side and pressed the trigger. That leg burned in two and Relegar's body sagged still more. ”

“ Grant got dazedly to his feet. He had to see Netse the Jovian, quick. Netse would exact a steep price as soon as he found out that Relegar had threatened, but even one-third of the money would be better than nothing. And he knew what it meant to be trailed by Relegar. No being from any planet had ever come back sane from being hunted by Relegar. ”

“ Relegar would find him. The spider had a locator sense that was infallible. He could set out days later and find Grant unerringly. And how could one fight the Uranian when they met? Relegar's nervous system was so constructed that he was practically impossible to kill. You could boil him or freeze him without injuring him. Uranians had been boiled alive in prussic acid for forty hours without ill effects. You could cut off legs and even sever the head and they would still live. So what could a man do? ”

“ Relegar's spy-system was a monopoly by reason of a peculiar fact: the fish-people talked in a high sound-range that no solar being but a Uranian could hear; no Uranian trusted another Uranian, and so Relegar was the only entity in The Pass who knew the dialect of the fish-people. Seldom did any person or any entity find anything of value in the bottom half of Venus that was not promptly reported to the Uranian. ”

“ Relegar was the master of The Pass. He was no human and he had no human feelings. Killings and stealing were a business to him, and he had the most efficient spying system on any planet. It was well known unofficially that he kept an underground factory busy extracting a drug from the stamen of the swamp-orchid. The drug was labeled "Venus-snow," and Relegar found it highly profitable to trade it to the fish in the Sea-Swamp on the southwest and to the semi-aquatic people in the great Gallium Bogs to the southeast—some called them "frogs"—for information. ”

“ The spider could travel much faster than Grant for it walked on water where Grant was forced to wade on the bottom. But Relegar would wait a while. He wouldn't want to be on the surface of Venus any longer than necessary, even for half a million dollars, so he would give Grant plenty of time, since there was no danger of his getting away.
Grant was encouraged by the fact that the constrictor did not appear to be far away. Everything here depended on his reaching the saurian two days ahead of Relegar. Not that he expected to run. ”

“ The oxygen problem for a diving-suit for forty days would have stopped most men but Grant had solved that too. If he had not, he never could have gone to the Red Lava Range after the fabulous gizzard-stones of Venus's prehistoric echindul. ”

“ But you won't go back very fast. You've got legs on only one side. It's going to be slow navigating, especially on water. In fact, I think maybe you'll have to wait until you grow some new legs."
He patted his pockets filled with half a million dollars' worth of echindul stones. "Long before that I'll be in Aphrodite depositing my stones at the First Interplanetary Bank."
He watched Relegar's eyes turn dead, cold black, then he screwed on his helmet, adjusted the oxygen, and stepped off into the brown water. He felt rather good, wading through the mud at the bottom of the swamp. ”

“ They offered nothing. They wanted all.
Netse must have been contacted by Relegar and told to keep hands off. That was why Grant had wanted to see Netse first. But he had not dreamed that Netse would refuse him entirely. He had thought it would be merely a matter of the price.
Now what could he do? He didn't dare let the constrictor have more than three day's head-start, for the saurian would finish digesting the fish in about five days. That meant Grant would have to start back to the swamp tomorrow. But Relegar's spies would report every move. The minute he set out, Relegar would be notified. ”

“ Grant, inordinately ill at ease, fumbled in his watch-pocket. It was incredible that this tiny butterfly that would hardly outweigh a cigarette paper should have the brain to conduct a ramified business such as this one, and it was even more incredible that men and everything else—except perhaps Relegar—would yield to its will. Will, of course, was the key factor. Will was dominant and men obeyed.
rant held out the echindul stone. "This is one of a pair," he said. "I found the other one too."
"You have just come back from the Red Lava Range," said the whistling voice. ”

“ They got out of the elevator in a rock cavern and walked a hundred feet. They passed two guards and went through a steel door. They were in a big room, dimly lighted by red bulbs. Giant didn't like the dimness and he didn't like the smell. ”