Bidgrass placed his hands palm down on the table and leaned back in sudden resolution.
"Mr. Cole, you force me to tell you something I had been minded to hold back. I already know a good part of what you have just told me. I wish to exterminate the stompers and I will do so. But I meant for you to go back to Belconti thinking it was the piskies."
Cole propped his chin on folded hands and raised his eyebrows. "I half suspected that. But I fooled you, didn't I?"
"Yes, and I admire you for it. Now let me tell you more. Stomper egg brings a very high price and I have kept it higher by storing large reserves. When it is known the stomper is extinct, the rarity value of my reserve will be enormous. It will mean an end of this harsh life for me and for my grandniece after me."
Cole's lip curled, and red mounted in the old man's face as he talked, but he went on doggedly.
"I want the pisky theory and the news of stomper extinction to be released through Belconti University. The news will spread faster and be more readily believed and I will avoid a certain moral stigma—"
"And now I've crossed you up!"
"You can still do it. I can ease your conscience with a settlement of—say—five thousand solars a year for life."
Cole leaped up and leaned across the table.
"No!" he snapped. "Old man, you don't know how ecologists feel about the greed-murder of species. What I will do is work through Belconti on your government at Car Truro, warn it that you are about to destroy an important planetary resource."