The Wealth of Echindul

by Noel M. Loomis

From the brilliant, blinding light of the sun even through the clouds, and the vapor arising from the surface of the swamp, he knew it was mid-afternoon when he awoke. He started up, but long habit stopped him almost as soon as he moved. He opened his eyes and was fully awake, listening for the sound that had awakened him. He heard it, a rasping noise like the sound of a knife-blade scraped against the grain of a fresh hog-skin. He looked across the swamp. Less than fifty yards away was Relegar, walking toward him on the water. The sound came from the scraping of his gray poison-mandibles against each other.

Relegar's mouth, as wide as his body, was open. The two bulbous eyes gleamed like pieces of polished metal. They saw Grant. The spider's sixteen jointed legs, that held his purple body three feet above the water, moved too fast for Grant to follow them. The Uranian skittered across a hundred feet of water and walked out on the land.

His bone-scraping voice came to Grant in the tree. "I'll take the stones now." It was a sinister voice. Grant felt a crawling, instinctive horror as the spider came toward him, its jointed legs moving delicately. "You've saved me some trouble by finding them."

Grant overcame his paralysis and reached for the heat-gun. Relegar saw the motion and stopped. "You can't hurt me with that heat-projector," he said. "You might shoot off a leg, but I'd have you half eaten before you could fire a second bolt."

The knowledge hit Grant with what was almost a shock that there was some way he could get the best of Relegar, otherwise the big spider would not have spoken at all. He well knew that he couldn't kill Relegar with the heat-gun. He could burn off a leg, yes, but he doubted that the infra-rays would affect the spider's body at all. He moved a little on the limbs, got a hold on the snake-skin shield, and dropped to the ground.

Relegar darted forward to meet him. But ten feet away the spider stopped, and Grant knew he had felt the radiation from the snake-skin. Relegar's mouth hung open, his white fangs gleaming in the red maw. The two bulbous eyes were suddenly shot with the red fire of anger. Grant did not hesitate. As he landed on the ground he fired a heat-bolt at one of Relegar's left legs. It smoked. There was an odor of burned hair. The queer material of the leg glowed white for an instant and then burned in two and the bottom part dropped off.

Relegar squealed. His two eyes almost exploded in a rage of red. He wasn't permanently injured—he would grow a new leg—but he was furious because he dared not come close to the shield. The radiation would paralyze him within a couple of seconds. Grant saw his body sag a little on the corner where the leg had been, and then he had one of those flashes of intuition that every being had to have, to live long in the swamp. He knew how to win this fight. He trained the heat-gun on the second leg on the same side and pressed the trigger. That leg burned in two and Relegar's body sagged still more.

Grant started on the third one. A feeling of triumph was growing in him. Then Relegar charged.

Grant hadn't expected that. There was little he could do but hold the shield frantically before him to try to ward off the fangs and the mandibles.

He had had no idea that the Uranian's body was so heavy. It seemed to Grant the thing must weigh three or four hundred pounds. It thundered into him and knocked him over as if he had been a straw. The heavy hoofs galloped over him. He was surprised, but he rolled on over and came to his feet, shooting.