Mallard nodded glumly. He knew, of course, that Olger was right, but the nightly sight of the rhizoids, softly gleaming in his hands, was raising a fever in his brain that would not be stilled. If there was only some way to establish contact with the natives, maybe get a guide. He fondled the rhizoid in his fingers and stared thoughtfully at the sultry fires within its depths.
The next day he started making overtures to a native girl they had dubbed Tiny. The natives they had seen flitting about the swamp seemed to average around seven feet tall but Tiny was not much larger than an Earth girl. She seemed very young, barely out of her childhood, although they had no way of knowing the age of these natives. Like youngsters of any race, she was filled with curiosity and she often hung around the outskirts of the camp after her tribesmen had been driven away.
Mallard set to work winning her confidence the same way he would have done with a wild animal. The first time she was alone he squatted down on the ground and made encouraging sounds toward the fern tree behind which she hid. Then he took a piece of Earth candy from his pocket, nibbled at it, made sounds of delight, and threw it on the ground before her. He walked away and when he looked back and saw her pick up the candy, he knew that he had made a start. In another two days, he was squatting on the ground, a few feet from her, trying to learn the rudiments of her language.
It was no easy task he had set for himself. Her language was a series of barking consonants that were terribly hard for his Terran vocal chords to form and her thought processes were so primitive that it was like trying to talk to a four-year-old child in a strange language.
But he did progress to the point where he could communicate simple ideas to her. Then he made the mistake of telling her that he wanted to find more of the rhizoid bearing fungus. Many, many more of them. When she understood what he wanted, she ran away and he did not see her again for nearly a week.
And when he did see her again it was almost too late for her to be of any further use to him. He was prospecting alone, that day, Olger and D'ulio having set out to explore another section of the swamp belt. He had gone only a little way into the swamp when he saw Tiny struggling, half mad with fear, in the grip of two burly natives. They were tying her with vines to a fallen log and another native was coming forward, carrying something in his arms.
Suddenly Mallard swore incredulously. The third native was carrying one of the white fungus stumps in his arms, carrying that deadly thing as carelessly as he would have carried a stick of wood! And then Mallard saw that he was wearing a helmet on his head, a metal helmet, ringed by some sort of crystal stones. The helmet was pouring a protective flood of soft green light downward, completely covering the native's body. He seemed unharmed by the green light but the spores from the fungus stump were shriveling the instant they were touched by the light.
Mallard leaped forward, then, his blaster spitting wildly. His first shot brought down the native with the helmet and the other two went down a moment later. When he rushed forward and took the helmet off the dead native, Tiny cowered down on the ground, her child eyes rolling up fearfully at him. Mallard ignored her as he bent his head over the helmet.
