The thing was made of some purplish metal that was like nothing he had ever seen anywhere in the System. Certainly it had never been constructed by these primitive people and Mallard wondered briefly what alien race from what far distant star had left it here in these fetid swamps.
But he was too filled with wild exultation to waste much time in idle speculation. The thing that mattered was that he now had a really perfect device for getting out the rhizoids. He alone had it! Let Olger and D'ulio keep their cumbersome Overton ray gun and squirm around the edge of the swamp belt with it. With this thing he could go deep inside the belt and bring out all the rhizoids he could carry.
And he was savagely determined to keep them when he brought them out. Let Bill Olger and D'ulio go back with him, carrying a basketful of those wonderful stones? Why, within hours after they hit Venusport, half the riff-raff of the space lanes would know about their discovery and be heading for Mercury. No, when he lifted the Space Lark off Mercury, Olger and the Martian simply wouldn't be aboard. The thought of murder raised no particular horror in his brain. He had killed before. He whirled about and looked down at the cowering native girl.
"You—belong me—now. You—take me—to these."
He showed her a couple of the rhizoids. Tiny looked back at the swamp behind her and whimpered like a beaten puppy just once. Then she nodded her head slowly. Mallard grinned with satisfaction as he bent down to cut her loose.
The girl led Mallard back into the very heart of the swamp belt. The journey was sheer nightmare. Hour after hour they plodded on while Mallard's body was soaked with sweat and his lungs seemed ready to burst from the steamy air. But the feel of those stones in his pocket somehow kept him plodding along after the naked girl ahead of him. Those stones had magic in them.
It seemed long eons before he saw Tiny come to a halt and looked fearfully around her. From her evident fright, Mallard guessed she was in a taboo place. She made a furtive gesture and he hurried up to her. He reached the spot where she stood and drew in his breath with a shuddering gasp.
The swamp had thinned out at this point and there before him was a whole grove of the white fungus stumps! They stood in serried ranks, like a yardful of ghosts and Mallard knew that within those white stumps there was a fortune that no space rat had ever dreamed of before.