Spacerogue

By WEBBER MARTIN
Illustrated by ED EMSH
The proteus could change its shape to anything at all—and Herndon discovered it made a perfect red herring!
CHAPTER I
They were selling a proteus in the public auctionplace at Borlaam, when the stranger wandered by. The stranger's name was Barr Herndon, and he was a tall man, with a proud, lonely face. It was not the face he had been born with, though his own had been equally proud, equally lonely.
He shouldered his way through the crowd. It was a warm and muggy day and a number of idling passersby had stopped to watch the auction. The auctioneer was an Agozlid, squat and bull-voiced, and he held the squirming proteus at arm's length, squeezing it to make it perform.
Observe, ladies and gentlemen—observe the shapes, the multitude of strange and exciting forms!
The proteus now had the shape of an eight-limbed star, blue-green at its core, fiery red in each limb. Under the auctioneer's merciless prodding it began to change, slowly, as its molecules lost their hold on one another and sought a new conformation.
A snake, a tree, a hooded deathworm—
The Agozlid grinned triumphantly at the crowd, baring fifty inch-long yellow teeth. What am I bid? he demanded in the guttural Borlaamese language. Who wants this creature from another sun's world?
Five stellors, said a bright-painted Borlaamese noblewoman down front.
Five stellors! Ridiculous, milady. Who'll begin with fifty? A hundred?