The Wealth of Echindul Page 3

usually meant radiation, preferred to stay underground.Perhaps it was more like their native world that way, for they livedunderground even on Uranus.

  They got out of the elevator in a rock cavern and walked a hundredfeet. They passed two guards and went through a steel door. They werein a big room, dimly lighted by red bulbs. Giant didn't like thedimness and he didn't like the smell. He tried to see.

  "Here he is," said the man.

  There was an odd bass rambling which Grant recognized as the voice ofa Uranian. He shivered. Then there were words, and Grant knew theUranian, wherever he was--maybe in a different room--was using amodifier to turn his sounds into Earth-language: "Walk closer,"ordered the queer voice. "I want to watch your face."

  It scraped the marrow in his bones, that queer voice. He saw a bigtunnel, and at the far end of it, barely discernible in the dim light,was Relegar. Grant stared, chilled. His eyes became used to the queerlight, and then he began to make out details. The tunnel was round andbig enough so that a man could have walked into it, and at the far endthe big Uranian seemed to be standing on his side, with his sixteenhuge jointed legs supporting him, half of them on the floor and halfon the ceiling. His purple, hairy body was supported in the middlealmost as from a web. His two semi-globular eyes, seemingly opaque,were surrounded by six smaller ones. Grant knew the smaller ones coulddetect infra-red, and now he felt his face growing warm and knew theyhad on infra spot on him.

  "What did you find in the swamp?" asked that dissonant voice.

  Grant swallowed and licked his lips. "Nothing," he said finally.

  The great maw of the spider, rimmed in red, opened wide as if theUranian was yawning. It showed long, curving white fangs. Then Relegarsaid, "You found stones of the echindul."

  "I have only one," said Grant, and held it out fearfully.

  A curious red began to creep over Relegar's body. His next words weredeadly: "One is no good. You found many. What did you do with them?"

  Grant watched the great, gray poison-mandibles lift, and he wasterrified. He wanted to speak but he could not.

  "You've hidden them somewhere," said the horrible voice. "You intendedto go back after them. Well, I am going to let you do that. But Ishall be after you. I, in person, shall be on your trail. How will youlike that?"

  "I--I haven't got them. I don't know where they are," Grant insisted,which, in a manner of speaking, was true.

  Relegar's two big bulbous eyes seemed to grow bigger and bigger, butstill the light was reflected only from their surface. Grant took astep backward. Relegar swayed his body toward him, but the legs didnot move. "Go get your stones," he said. "But whenever you do, I'll beright behind you. And don't try to go to Aphrodite."

  The lights went out. The giant Neptunian was at Grant's side. Grantfelt the leathery skin against his hand. They took him up and kickedhim out on the street.

  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 Relegarhad threatened, but even one-third of the money would be better thannothing. And he knew what it meant to be trailed by Relegar. No beingfrom any planet had ever come back sane from being hunted by Relegar.Most of them didn't come back.

  He stopped at the big jewelry house over on Curium Avenue. He saw thatit was now nearly one o'clock in the morning, and of course thejewelry store was closed, but he knew that Netse seldom slept and thatthe Jovian probably did more business at night than during the day. Hepressed the night button and waited.

  The square of sidewalk dropped. Grant walked between X-ray scannersand remembered to deposit his heat-gun. He was met by an Earthman whotook him up a long escalator. They went into a well-lighted room hungwith rich tapestries and golden drapes. The man escorted Grant to apedestal in the center of the room. The lights went out and it wasinky black.

  Then suddenly there sprang into sight on the pedestal a transparentdome the size of a small goldfish bowl. It was lighted by ultra-violetfrom the bottom. In the center of the dome a small golden ball hung bya platinum wire, and on the ball was a tiny butterfly--Netse theJovian. Netse's wings moved slowly as he walked around the ball, andthe violet light brought out the delicate green luminous tracery inhis wings. Grant involuntarily stepped back.

  There were whistling words and Grant was aware that they came througha speaker and amplification system. He knew the dome that protectedthe Jovian was almost indestructible. "You wished to see me?" Thewings moved slowly back and forth. Each one had a purple spot in thecenter like an eye.

  Grant gulped. "Yes. I--I have something to show you. I need yourhelp." He wondered if the purple spots actually were eyes.

  "Most people do," said Netse dryly.

  Grant, inordinately ill at ease, fumbled in his watch-pocket. It wasincredible that this tiny butterfly that would hardly outweigh acigarette paper should have the brain to conduct a ramified businesssuch as this one, and it was even more incredible that men andeverything else--except perhaps Relegar--would yield to its will.Will, of course, was the key factor. Will was dominant and men obeyed.

  * * * * *

  Grant 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 whistlingvoice. "How many pairs did you find?"

  Grant stared at the butterfly. Some thought the Jovians could readminds. Grant wondered. Then he decided to be honest. "Sixteen."

  Netse's wings quit moving for a minute. "What do you want me to do?"

  "I want you to assure me safe passage to your office. I will give youthree-fourths of them," Grant blurted. He had not meant to make anoffer like that. He had intended to let Netse ask but the delicacy ofhis situation hit him abruptly and fully and he was weighed down withsudden desperation.

  "How can you find the others?" asked Netse.

  "I--" Grant got cautious. "I have provided for that."

  The butterfly fluttered to the top of the dome and hung upside downfor a moment. Then the whistling came again. "I am sorry. I do not seewhere I can be of any assistance."

  Grant was stunned. He held out both hands. "But--"

  The lights went out. The Earthman was at his side, leading him out. Hewas given his heat-gun. "But what--why?--I don't understand," Grantsaid, bewildered.

  His escort looked at him, opened his mouth, and showed Grant he wastongueless. He positioned Grant on the square and a moment later Grantwas back on the sidewalk.

  Discouragement was on him like a great weight. It deadened him. Itsmothered him. He paced the streets and eventually found himselfbefore a restaurant. He remembered then that he had not eaten for along time. He went in and ordered oysters. That was about the onlymeat you could buy in The Pass and be sure of not eating some sentientbeing. Then, waiting, he sat in a booth with his head between hishands.

  It was apparent they didn't want him to have any part of hisstones--the stones he had spent six months and risked his lifefor--the stones that meant so much to him and to Beth. They wanted allof his stones. The dirty Shylocks. They weren't willing to take half,or two-thirds, or three-fourths. They wanted all. They weren't willingfor him to have any part of them. He would have settled for ten percent, which would have been over fifty thousand dollars, but theydidn't offer him ten per cent. 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 notdreamed that Netse would refuse him entirely. He had thought it wouldbe merely a matter of the price.

  Now what could he do? He didn't dare let the constrictor have morethan three day's head-start, for the saurian would finish digestingthe fish in about five days. That meant Grant would have to start backto the swamp tomorrow. But Relegar's spies would report every move.The minute he set out, Relegar would be notified. And Relegar wouldcome after him. Grant shuddered. Where his hands touched his face hisfinger tips were cold.

  Re
legar would find him. The spider had a locator sense that wasinfallible. He could set out days later and find Grant unerringly. Andhow could one fight the Uranian when they met? Relegar's nervoussystem was so constructed that he was practically impossible to kill.You could boil him or freeze him without injuring him. Uranians hadbeen boiled alive in prussic acid for forty hours without ill effects.You could cut off legs and even sever the head and they would stilllive. So what could a man do?

  There was only one thing Grant knew. That was to go after the stones.They were his and he would never give them up. They might take thestones away from him, but he would never give them up.

  So the next morning he overhauled his suit and patched it. He gotfresh oxygen and bought a meager supply of food.