Grant froze. He wanted to run but couldn't. He turned. Back at the
alley, in the light, was a medium-size, solidly built man with black
hair and a long scar on his left cheek. Grant wheeled, but stopped
short. In front of him, at the street end, was a huge Neptunian. It
was ten feet high. Grant shuddered. He didn't want that thing too
close to him with its razor-sharp teeth and its fondness for blood. He
walked toward the Earthman.
* * * * *
They took him into a snow-joint over on Chloride Street. The man led,
the Neptunian followed. They went down many flights of stairs carved
in the solid purple lava and finally into an elevator. They went
farther down.
This, then, was Relegar's headquarters. The Uranian couldn't stand
radiation for any length of time. Out on Uranus they had almost none,
and so Venus, with its very heavy clouds that filtered the sunlight,
was one of the few planets where a Uranian could live. Even so, the
Uranians on Venus, having an instinctive dread of sunlight because
sunlight usually meant radiation, preferred to stay underground.
Perhaps it was more like their native world that way, for they lived
underground even on Uranus.
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. He tried to see.
"Here he is," said the man.
There was an odd bass rambling which Grant recognized as the voice of
a Uranian. He shivered. Then there were words, and Grant knew the
Uranian, wherever he was--maybe in a different room--was using a
modifier 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 big
tunnel, and at the far end of it, barely discernible in the dim light,
was Relegar. Grant stared, chilled. His eyes became used to the queer
light, and then he began to make out details. The tunnel was round and
big enough so that a man could have walked into it, and at the far end
the big Uranian seemed to be standing on his side, with his sixteen
huge jointed legs supporting him, half of them on the floor and half
on the ceiling. His purple, hairy body was supported in the middle
almost as from a web. His two semi-globular eyes, seemingly opaque,
were surrounded by six smaller ones. Grant knew the smaller ones could
detect infra-red, and now he felt his face growing warm and knew they
had 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 the
Uranian was yawning. It showed long, curving white fangs. Then Relegar
said, "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 were
deadly: "One is no good. You found many. What did you do with them?"
Grant watched the great, gray poison-mandibles lift, and he was
terrified. He wanted to speak but he could not.
"You've hidden them somewhere," said the horrible voice. "You intended
to go back after them. Well, I am going to let you do that. But I
shall be after you. I, in person, shall be on your trail. How will you
like 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, but
still the light was reflected only from their surface. Grant took a
step backward. Relegar swayed his body toward him, but the legs did
not move. "Go get your stones," he said. "But whenever you do, I'll be
right behind you. And don't try to go to Aphrodite."
The lights went out. The giant Neptunian was at Grant's side. Grant
felt the leathery skin against his hand. They took him up and kicked
him 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 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.
Most of them didn't come back.
He stopped at the big jewelry house over on Curium Avenue. He saw that
it was now nearly one o'clock in the morning, and of course the
jewelry store was closed, but he knew that Netse seldom slept and that
the Jovian probably did more business at night than during the day. He
pressed the night button and waited.
The square of sidewalk dropped. Grant walked between X-ray scanners
and remembered to deposit his heat-gun. He was met by an Earthman who
took him up a long escalator. They went into a well-lighted room hung
with rich tapestries and golden drapes. The man escorted Grant to a
pedestal in the center of the room. The lights went out and it was
inky black.
Then suddenly there sprang into sight on the pedestal a transparent
dome the size of a small goldfish bowl. It was lighted by ultra-violet
from the bottom. In the center of the dome a small golden ball hung by
a platinum wire, and on the ball was a tiny butterfly--Netse the
Jovian. Netse's wings moved slowly as he walked around the ball, and
the violet light brought out the delicate green luminous tracery in
his wings. Grant involuntarily stepped back.
There were whistling words and Grant was aware that they came through
a speaker and amplification system. He knew the dome that protected
the Jovian was almost indestructible. "You wished to see me?" The
wings moved slowly back and forth. Each one had a purple spot in the
center like an eye.
Grant gulped. "Yes. I--I have something to show you. I need your
help." 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 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.
* * * * *
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 whistling
voice. "How many pairs did you find?"
Grant stared at the butterfly. Some thought the Jovians could read
minds. Grant wondered. Then he decided to be honest. "Sixteen."