Next morning Furston passed out guns, knives, radios, and pouches to
carry any eggs the muck men found. He gave each man a compass and
assigned the sectors to be worked during the day. Finally he called
Graybar aside.
"In case you don't like it here," Furston said, "you can get a week
knocked off your sentence for every egg you bring in. Now get out there
and work that muck."
Furston sent Graybar and Kershaw out together so that the veteran could
show Asa the ropes. Asa had already learned that the wall around the
courtyard was to keep Sliders out, not muck men in. He leaped over it
and hopped along after Kershaw.
Feet slapping against the mud, they went about five miles from the
Hazeltyne station, swimming easily across ponds too broad to jump. The
mud, if not precisely as pleasant to the touch as chinchilla fur, was
not at all uncomfortable, and the dripping air caressed their skins
like a summer breeze back on Earth. Tiny, slippery creatures skidded
and splashed out of their way. Finally Kershaw stopped. His experienced
eye had seen a trail of swamp weeds crushed low into the mud.
"Keep your eyes open," Kershaw said. "There's a Slider been around here
lately. If you see something like an express train headed our way,
start shooting."
At each leap along the trail they peered quickly around. They saw no
Sliders, but this meant little, for the beasts lived under the mud as
much as on top of it.
Kershaw halted again when they came to a roughly circular area some ten
yards in diameter where the weeds had been torn out and lay rotting in
the muck.
"We're in luck," he said as Asa skidded to a stop at his side. "An egg
was laid somewhere here within the last week. These places are hard to
spot when the new weeds start growing."
Kershaw took a long look around.
"No trouble in sight. We dig."
They started at the center of the cleared area, shoveling up great gobs
of mud with their hands and flinging them out of the clearing. Usually
a muck man dug in a spiral out from the center, but Graybar and Kershaw
dug in gradually widening semi-circles opposite each other. They had
to dig four feet deep, and it was slow going until they had a pit
big enough to stand in. Each handful of mud had to be squeezed gently
before it was thrown away, to make sure it didn't conceal an egg. As he
worked, Asa kept thinking what an inefficient system it was. Everything
about the operation was wrong.
"Got it!" Kershaw shouted. He leaped out of the pit and started wiping
slime off a round object the size of a baseball. Asa jumped out to
watch.
"A big one," Kershaw said. He held it, still smeared with traces of
mud, lovingly to his cheek, and then lifted it to eye level. "Just look
at it."
The egg was flashing with a mad radiance, like a thousand diamonds
being splintered under a brilliant sun. Static crackled in Asa's
earphones and he thought of what Kershaw had said, that the
scintillation of an egg was an effect of its calls to a mother Slider
for help. Asa looked around.
"Jump!" he shouted.
At the edge of the clearing a segmented length of greenish black
scales, some two feet thick and six feet high, had reared up out of the
weeds. The top segment was almost all mouth, already opened to show row
upon row of teeth. Before Asa could draw his gun the Slider lowered
its head to the ground, dug two front flippers into the mud and shot
forward.
Asa leaped with all his strength, sailing far out of the clearing.
While he was still in the air he snapped the mouthpiece of his radio
down from where it was hinged over his head. As he landed he turned
instantly, his gun in his hand.
"Calling the 'copter!" he spoke rapidly into the mouthpiece. "Kershaw
and Graybar, sector eight, five miles out. Hurry!"
"Graybar?" asked a voice in his earphone. "What's up?"
"We've got an egg but a Slider wants it back."
"On the way."
Asa hopped back to the clearing. Kershaw must have been bowled over by
the Slider's first rush, for he was trying to hop on one leg as if the
other had been broken. The egg lay flickering on top of the mud where
Kershaw had dropped it. The Slider, eight flippers on each side working
madly, was twisting its thirty feet of wormlike body around for another
charge.
Aiming hastily, Asa fired a rocket at the monster's middle segment. The
rocket smashed through hard scales and exploded in a fountain of gray
flesh. The Slider writhed, coating its wound in mud, and twisted toward
Asa. He leaped to one side, firing from the air and missing, and saw
the Slider turn toward the patch of weeds where he would land. His legs
were tensed to leap again the moment he hit the mud, but he saw the
Slider would be on top of him before he could escape. As he landed he
thrust his gun forward almost into the mouth of the creature and fired
again.
Even as he was knocked aside into the muck, Asa's body was showered
with shreds of alien flesh scattered by the rocket's explosion.
Desperately pushing himself to his feet, he saw the long headless body
shiver and lie still.
Asa took a deep breath and looked around.
"Kershaw!" he called. "Where are you?"
"Over here." Kershaw stood briefly above the weeds and fell back again.
Asa leaped over to him.
"Thanks," Kershaw said. "Muck men stick together. You'll make a good
one. I wouldn't have had a chance. My leg's busted."
"The helicopter ought to be here pretty soon," Asa said. He looked over
at the dead Slider and shook his head. "Tell me, what are the odds on
getting killed doing this?"
"Last time I was here there was about one mucker killed for every six
eggs brought out. Of course you're not supposed to stand there admiring
the eggs like I did while a Slider comes up on you."
Asa hopped over to the egg, which was still full of a dancing radiance
where it rested on the mud. He scooped a hole in the muck and buried
the egg.
"Just in case there are any more Sliders around," he explained.
"Makes no difference," said Kershaw, pointing upward. "Here comes the
'copter, late as usual."
The big machine circled them, hovered to inspect the dead Slider, and
settled down on broad skids. Through the transparent nose Asa could see
Tom Dorr and Harriet Hazeltyne. The company manager swung the door open
and leaned out.
"I see you took care of the Slider," he said. "Hand over the egg."
"Kershaw has a broken leg," Asa said. "I'll help him in and then I'll
get the egg."
While Kershaw grabbed the door frame to help pull himself into the
helicopter, Asa got under his companion's belly and lifted him by the
waist. He hadn't realized before just how strong his new body was.
Kershaw, as a muck man, would have weighed close to three hundred
pounds on Earth, close to six hundred here.
Dorr made no move to help, but the girl reached under Kershaw's
shoulder and strained to get him in. Once he was inside, Asa saw, the
cabin was crowded.
"Are you going to have room for me too?" he asked.
"Not this trip," Dorr answered. "Now give me the egg."
Asa didn't hesitate. "The egg stays with me," he said softly.
"You do what I tell you, mucker," said Dorr.
"Nope. I want to make sure you come back." Asa turned his head to
Harriet. "You see, Miss Hazeltyne, I don't trust your friend. You might
ask him to tell you about it."
Dorr stared at him with narrowed eyes. Suddenly he smiled in a way that
worried Asa.
"Whatever you say, Graybar," Dorr said. He turned to the controls. In
another minute the helicopter was in the sky.
A round trip for the helicopter should have taken no more than twenty
minutes, allowing time for Kershaw to be taken out at the settlement.
After an hour passed Asa began to worry. He was sure Dorr would return
for the egg. Finally he realized that Dorr could locate the egg
approximately by the body of the dead Slider. Dorr could return for the
egg any time with some other muck man to dig for it.
Asa pulled down the mouthpiece of his radio.
"This is Graybar, calling the helicopter," he said. "When are you
coming?"
There was no answer except the hum of carrier wave.
If he tried to carry the egg back, Asa knew, Sliders would attack him
all along the way. A man had no chance of getting five miles with an
egg by himself. He could leave the egg here, of course. Even so he
would be lucky if he got back, following a hazy compass course from
which he and Kershaw had certainly deviated on their outward trip.
There were no landmarks in this wilderness of bog to help him find his
way. The workers were supposed to home in on radio signals, if they
lost their bearings, but Dorr would deny him that help.
What was the night like on Jordan's Planet? Maybe Sliders slept at
night. If he could stay awake, and if he didn't faint from hunger in
this strange new body, and if the Sliders left him alone....
A whirring noise made Asa jump in alarm.
[Illustration: A SLIDER EGG]
Then he smiled in relief, for it was the helicopter, the blessed
helicopter, coming in over the swamp. But what if it was Dorr, coming
back alone to dispose of him without any witnesses? Asa leaped for the
carcass of the dead Slider and took shelter behind it.
No machine-gun blast of rockets came from the helicopter. The big
machine swooped low dizzily, tilted back in an inexpert attempt to
hover, thumped down upon the mud and slid forward. As Asa jumped aside,
the landing skids caught against the Slider's body and the helicopter
flipped forward on its nose, one of the rotor blades plunging deep into
the mud.
Asa leaped forward in consternation. Not only was his chance of safe
passage back to the settlement wrecked, but now he would have the
extra burden of taking care of the pilot. When he reached the nose
of the helicopter he saw that the pilot, untangling herself from the
controls to get up, was Harriet Hazeltyne.