"I don't know," Kinnison answered the unasked question, "but I can find out." Again and more carefully he examined the minds of two or three of them. "No, they didn't follow us," he reported then. "They're not as dumb as I thought they were. They have a sense of perception, Tregonsee, about the same thing, I judge, as yours—perhaps even more so. I wonder—why couldn't they be trained into mighty efficient police assistants on this planet?"
"The way you handle them, yes. I can converse with them a little, of course, but they have never before shown any willingness to coöperate with us."
"You never fed them sugar." Kinnison laughed. "You have sugar, of course—or do you? I was forgetting that many races do not use it at all."
"We Rigellians are one of those races. Starch is so much tastier and so much better adapted to our body chemistry that sugar is used only as a chemical. We can, however, obtain it easily enough. But there is something else. You can tell these trencos what to do and make them really understand you. I cannot."
"I can fix that up with a simple mental treatment that I can give you in five minutes. Also, I can let you have enough sugar to carry on with until you can get in a supply of your own."
In the few minutes during which the Lensmen had been discussing their potential allies, the mud had dried and the amazing coverage of dense, succulent "grass" was springing visibly into being. So incredibly rapid was its growth that in ten minutes more the plants were large enough to be gathered. The leaves were lush and rank, in color a vivid, crimsonish purple.
"These early-morning plants are the richest of any in thionite, but the zwilniks can never get more than a handful of them because of the wind," remarked the Rigellian. "Now, if you will give me that treatment, I will see what I can do with the Flats."
Kinnison did so, and the trencos worked for Tregonsee as industriously as they had for Kinnison—and ate his sugar as rapturously.
"That is enough," decided the Rigellian presently. "This will finish your fifty kilograms and to spare."
He then "paid off" his now enthusiastic helpers, with instructions to return when the sun was directly overhead, for more work and more sugar. And this time they did not complain, nor did they loiter around or bring in unwanted vegetation. They were learning fast.