"Two days ago. Your fine feathered friends shunned you when they
learned you were a tsith hound. But I stuck by you," Kueelo added
cunningly.
Latham sank heavily onto a clump of swamp grass. He stared at his
right hand. It had started trembling. He couldn't stop the trembling.
He wondered dully if he was frightened, or if that was a result of the
terrible craving that twisted and writhed within him. He stared up
into the Martian's face.
"Stranded," he said weakly. "But I'll get out of here. I'll hire out
on one of the freighters--"
"You won't." Kueelo's voice was matter-of-fact again. "Not when they
learn you're a tsith hound. And Penger will let them know, you can bet
on that. He's a devil, that Penger."
"But he's an Earthman, and I'm an Earthman!" Latham's voice was almost
a wail. His soul was withering within him.
"Tell Penger that and see what he answers you. You're on the beach, my
friend. You've been there before, but this is the final beach--the
swampside of Venus. And here you'll stay until Penger is ready to let
you go. I've been here five years."
Joel Latham put his head in his hands and tried to think. Kueelo's
voice droned on:
"You'll work for Penger. You'll work in the swamps. An Earthman, a
Martian, a Ganymedian can do ten times the work of one of these
gweels." He gestured at the pallid-faced low-Venusians who moved
listlessly through the mud, pulling up the draanga-weed. "You'll work
for the amount of tsith Penger portions out to you, and glad to get
it."
At the word _tsith_, Latham's head came up. The dawning fear was gone
from his eyes.
"All right! I'll do it, but only for a while, mind you! I'll find a
way out of this. I'm getting back to the iridium fields on Callisto."
He plunged wildly into the mud and sank to his waist. But it was the
thought of tsith that drove him on, not Callisto. Kueelo stood by and
watched, a thin, knowing smile creasing his leathery lips.
A sort of frenzy had come upon Joel Latham. He tore at the stubborn
draanga-weed and brought it up dripping, tossing the long lengths
across his shoulder. He knew of this stuff.
When properly synthesized draanga-weed had a medicinal value on the
various planets. Penger shipped it out four times a year, at a neat
little profit.
Latham moved on. A yellowish fog had come down, the dreaded igniis
fatui. Unless one kept moving, decomposition of the blood set in,
essential salts within the body were dissolved and cellular activity
ceased. Latham grinned wryly. He doubted if it could touch him! There
was too much tsith within his alchemy. Nevertheless he moved and
worked ceaselessly. He could see that caricature of a Martian standing
back there watching.
Then it happened; the thing happened which was to prove both a promise
and a despair. Joel Latham felt a hardness at his heel, an irritating
lump inside his neoprene boot.
He moved back to higher ground, lifted his foot from the mire and
removed the boot. He shook something out into his hand. It was round
and hard and shiny, perhaps an inch in diameter. He held it aloft
between thumb and forefinger. The filtering sunlight struck it and
sent back lambent fires.
Joel Latham stared and gasped, felt his senses reeling.
"Purple!" he sobbed. "A purple Josmian!"
* * * * *
He was clambering back toward Kueelo. Forgetting the sweat in his eyes
and the insufferable heat, he held the thing aloft.
"Look at it!" he sobbed again. "Look at it shine! Look at the size!"
Kueelo was indeed looking. His yellowish eyes bulged. "A Josmian," he
whispered. "We've struck it rich!"
Joel Latham regarded the little caricature with astonishment.
Something of sanity came back to Joel Latham. "We?" he said. "I found
it. It's mine. I never knew you until four days ago!"
"But I stood by you," the Martian wailed. "Your friends deserted you,
but I stood by. Aren't we partners?"
Latham considered that. "No," he decided. "You stood by me as long as
I had credit for tsith! Until my money and lucky piece and dis-gun and
clothes were gone. Did you offer to help me out there?" he waved at
the swamp. "This Josmian is going to get me back to Callisto! Penger
ought to give me plenty for it."
What happened next was too swift for Latham's reeling senses. A
claw-like hand darted out, and Kueelo snatched the Josmian; his other
hand swung around and caught Latham hard across the throat, sending
him back into the swamp where he staggered for a moment and sat down
abruptly.
"Hey!" Latham protested. "Hey, look here--"
But the Martian was scuttling away like a huge fiddler crab, the
Josmian clutched in one scrawny fist.
Joel Latham came slowly up out of the mud, shaking his head and
grinning stupidly. It was very unkind of Kueelo to treat him like
this. He watched the Martian's departing figure. He made no effort to
follow--not at once--not until a strange new emotion, part frustration
and part despair, rose up in his breast, and close upon that the
dawning realization that he was being cheated of a last hope.
Even then he didn't hurry. He followed Kueelo, swinging along in slow
loping strides, but not gaining. He felt weak and sick. That jagged
need for tsith was again sawing away at his entrails. His feet tangled
in the outlying swamp grass, he plunged headlong and picked himself
up.
Kueelo was heading for higher ground away from the compound. Kueelo
was yelling as he ran. Latham wondered why the devil he was yelling.
Then, some distance ahead, Latham could see a third man lifting
himself from the ground. The Jovian! Suddenly Latham remembered him.
The Jovian had been with them last night too. Now Kueelo was tugging
at the man, yelling, showing him the Josmian.
The Jovian hoisted his bulk erect, turned and waited for Latham,
grinning broadly. The grin didn't fool Latham. All Jovians grinned.
Some of them grinned while breaking a man's vertebrae. This was one of
the big ones, Latham noticed, and he was ugly, with long reaching arms
and wiry hair and a face that looked as if he'd slept in it.
Latham stopped just short of him and reached out a hand. "I want the
Josmian," said Joel Latham.
The Jovian came a step forward. "You leave Kueelo alone. Kueelo, he's
my friend."
"I'm going to have that Josmian," said Joel Latham.
The Jovian thrust out a huge fist with amazing speed. Latham caught at
it and hung on grimly. The Jovian brought his other hand around in an
arc that caught the Earthman across the face, sent him sprawling ten
feet away.
"Josmian belongs to us, now. You leave us alone."
Joel Latham sat there wiping blood from his face, watching the bestial
pair as they headed around the compound and into the matted jungle.
His last glimpse, just before darkness swallowed them up, was of
Kueelo grinning gleefully back at him.
Latham sighed. He stood up. The blow had shaken some of the resolve
out of him. He turned east, northeast, east-by-north, like a compass
on a binge. Then he saw Penger watching him from the outer gate of the
compound. Apparently Penger had seen it all.
Latham turned and ran toward Jake Penger.
"You saw them!" Latham wailed. "You saw it. They stole my Josmian!
You've got to stop them!"
* * * * *
Penger planted his feet wide apart and surveyed the snivelling
Earthman. Penger's dark face was hard-cut and impassive. He'd seen
these tsith hounds before. They came here and died here. He hated them
all.