ousand dollars, but they
didn't offer him ten per cent. They offered nothing. They wanted all.

Netse must have been contacted by Relegar and told to keep hands off.
That was why Grant had wanted to see Netse first. But he had not
dreamed that Netse would refuse him entirely. He had thought it would
be merely a matter of the price.

Now what could he do? He didn't dare let the constrictor have more
than three day's head-start, for the saurian would finish digesting
the fish in about five days. That meant Grant would have to start back
to the swamp tomorrow. But Relegar's spies would report every move.
The minute he set out, Relegar would be notified. And Relegar would
come after him. Grant shuddered. Where his hands touched his face his
finger tips were cold.

Relegar would find him. The spider had a locator sense that was
infallible. He could set out days later and find Grant unerringly. And
how could one fight the Uranian when they met? Relegar's nervous
system was so constructed that he was practically impossible to kill.
You could boil him or freeze him without injuring him. Uranians had
been boiled alive in prussic acid for forty hours without ill effects.
You could cut off legs and even sever the head and they would still
live. So what could a man do?

There was only one thing Grant knew. That was to go after the stones.
They were his and he would never give them up. They might take the
stones away from him, but he would never give them up.

So the next morning he overhauled his suit and patched it. He got
fresh oxygen and bought a meager supply of food. He had one more good
meal and started out south again with the single stone in his
watch-pocket.

It took him seven hours to reach the place where he had left the
constrictor. It was gone, of course. How far, he could not know. He
took the one telepathic stone from his pocket. He found a spot where
he could sit in the open, cross-legged, with his eyes fixed on the
stone. From the corner of his eye he saw a brown detached eye on a
stalk pop up from the surface of the water, but he paid no attention.
He concentrated on the stone.

The stone had a fair polish. He looked at its surface and shut out all
the normal sounds from his ears. The stone seemed to be in motion on
the inside, and presently that motion communicated itself to his mind.
He had a picture of a constrictor, lying sleepily in a pool of brown
water surrounded by heavy, deep grass that hung over