next morning furston passed out guns, knives, radios, and pouches to carry any eggs the muck men found. he gave each man a compass and assigned the sectors to be worked during the day. finally he called graybar aside.
"in case you don't like it here," furston said, "you can get a week knocked off your sentence for every egg you bring in. now get out there and work that muck."
furston sent graybar and kershaw out together so that the veteran could show asa the ropes. asa had already learned that the wall around the courtyard was to keep sliders out, not muck men in. he leaped over it and hopped along after kershaw.
feet slapping against the mud, they went about five miles from the hazeltyne station, swimming easily across ponds too broad to jump. the mud, if not precisely as pleasant to the touch as chinchilla fur, was not at all uncomfortable, and the dripping air caressed their skins like a summer breeze back on earth. tiny, slippery creatures skidded and splashed out of their way. finally kershaw stopped. his experienced eye had seen a trail of swamp weeds crushed low into the mud.
"keep your eyes open," kershaw said. "there's a slider been around here lately. if you see something like an express train headed our way, start shooting."
at each leap along the trail they peered quickly around. they saw no sliders, but this meant little, for the beasts lived under the mud as much as on top of it.
kershaw halted again when they came to a roughly circular area some ten yards in diameter where the weeds had been torn out and lay rotting in the muck.
"we're in luck," he said as asa skidded to a stop at his side. "an egg was laid somewhere here within the last week. these places are hard to spot when the new weeds start growing."
kershaw took a long look around.
"no trouble in sight. we dig."
they started at the center of the cleared area, shoveling up great gobs of mud with their hands and flinging them out of the clearing. usually a muck man dug in a spiral out from the center, but graybar and kershaw dug in gradually widening semi-circles opposite each other. they had to dig four feet deep, and it was slow going until they had a pit big enough to stand in. each handful of mud had to be squeezed gently before it was thrown away, to make sure it didn't conceal an egg. as he worked, asa kept thinking what an inefficient system it was. everything about the operation was wrong.
"got it!" kershaw shouted. he leaped out of the pit and started wiping slime off a round object the size of a baseball. asa jumped out to watch.
"a big one," kershaw said. he held it, still smeared with traces of mud, lovingly to his cheek, and then lifted it to eye level. "just look at it."
the egg was flashing with a mad radiance, like a thousand diamonds being splintered under a brilliant sun. static crackled in asa's earphones and he thought of what kershaw had said, that the scintillation of an egg was an effect of its calls to a mother slider for help. asa looked around.
"jump!" he shouted.
at the edge of the clearing a segmented length of greenish black scales, some two feet thick and six feet high, had reared up out of the weeds. the top segment was almost all mouth, already opened to show row upon row of teeth. before asa could draw his gun the slider lowered its head to the ground, dug two front flippers into the mud and shot forward.
asa leaped with all his strength, sailing far out of the clearing. while he was still in the air he snapped the mouthpiece of his radio down from where it was hinged over his head. as he landed he turned instantly, his gun in his hand.
"calling the 'copter!" he spoke rapidly into the mouthpiece. "kershaw and graybar, sector eight, five miles out. hurry!"
"graybar?" asked a voice in his earphone. "what's up?"
"we've got an egg but a slider wants it back."
"on the way."
asa hopped back to the clearing. kershaw must have been bowled over by the slider's first rush, for he was trying to hop on one leg as if the other had been broken. the egg lay flickering on top of the mud where kershaw had dropped it. the slider, eight flippers on each side working madly, was twisting its thirty feet of wormlike body around for another charge.
aiming hastily, asa fired a rocket at the monster's middle segment. the rocket smashed through hard scales and exploded in a fountain of gray flesh. the slider writhed, coating its wound in mud, and twisted toward asa. he leaped to one side, firing from the air and missing, and saw the slider turn toward the patch of weeds where he would land. his legs were tensed to leap again the moment he hit the mud, but he saw the slider would be on top of him before he could escape. as he landed he thrust his gun forward almost into the mouth of the creature and fired again.
even as he was knocked aside into the muck, asa's body was showered with shreds of alien flesh scattered by the rocket's explosion. desperately pushing himself to his feet, he saw the long headless body shiver and lie still.
asa took a deep breath and looked around.
"kershaw!" he called. "where are you?"
"over here." kershaw stood briefly above the weeds and fell back again. asa leaped over to him.
"thanks," kershaw said. "muck men stick together. you'll make a good one. i wouldn't have had a chance. my leg's busted."
"the helicopter ought to be here pretty soon," asa said. he looked over at the dead slider and shook his head. "tell me, what are the odds on getting killed doing this?"
"last time i was here there was about one mucker killed for every six eggs brought out. of course you're not supposed to stand there admiring the eggs like i did while a slider comes up on you."
asa hopped over to the egg, which was still full of a dancing radiance where it rested on the mud. he scooped a hole in the muck and buried the egg.
"just in case there are any more sliders around," he explained.
"makes no difference," said kershaw, pointing upward. "here comes the 'copter, late as usual."
the big machine circled them, hovered to inspect the dead slider, and settled down on broad skids. through the transparent nose asa could see tom dorr and harriet hazeltyne. the company manager swung the door open and leaned out.
"i see you took care of the slider," he said. "hand over the egg."
"kershaw has a broken leg," asa said. "i'll help him in and then i'll get the egg."
while kershaw grabbed the door frame to help pull himself into the helicopter, asa got under his companion's belly and lifted him by the waist. he hadn't realized before just how strong his new body was. kershaw, as a muck man, would have weighed close to three hundred pounds on earth, close to six hundred here.
dorr made no move to help, but the girl reached under kershaw's shoulder and strained to get him in. once he was inside, asa saw, the cabin was crowded.
"are you going to have room for me too?" he asked.
"not this trip," dorr answered. "now give me the egg."
asa didn't hesitate. "the egg stays with me," he said softly.
"you do what i tell you, mucker," said dorr.
"nope. i want to make sure you come back." asa turned his head to harriet. "you see, miss hazeltyne, i don't trust your friend. you might ask him to tell you about it."
dorr stared at him with narrowed eyes. suddenly he smiled in a way that worried asa.
"whatever you say, graybar," dorr said. he turned to the controls. in another minute the helicopter was in the sky.
a round trip for the helicopter should have taken no more than twenty minutes, allowing time for kershaw to be taken out at the settlement.
after an hour passed asa began to worry. he was sure dorr would return for the egg. finally he realized that dorr could locate the egg approximately by the body of the dead slider. dorr could return for the egg any time with some other muck man to dig for it.
asa pulled down the mouthpiece of his radio.
"this is graybar, calling the helicopter," he said. "when are you coming?"
there was no answer except the hum of carrier wave.
if he tried to carry the egg back, asa knew, sliders would attack him all along the way. a man had no chance of getting five miles with an egg by himself. he could leave the egg here, of course. even so he would be lucky if he got back, following a hazy compass course from which he and kershaw had certainly deviated on their outward trip. there were no landmarks in this wilderness of bog to help him find his way. the workers were supposed to home in on radio signals, if they lost their bearings, but dorr would deny him that help.
what was the night like on jordan's planet? maybe sliders slept at night. if he could stay awake, and if he didn't faint from hunger in this strange new body, and if the sliders left him alone....
a whirring noise made asa jump in alarm.
then he smiled in relief, for it was the helicopter, the blessed helicopter, coming in over the swamp. but what if it was dorr, coming back alone to dispose of him without any witnesses? asa leaped for the carcass of the dead slider and took shelter behind it.
no machine-gun blast of rockets came from the helicopter. the big machine swooped low dizzily, tilted back in an inexpert attempt to hover, thumped down upon the mud and slid forward. as asa jumped aside, the landing skids caught against the slider's body and the helicopter flipped forward on its nose, one of the rotor blades plunging deep into the mud.
asa leaped forward in consternation. not only was his chance of safe passage back to the settlement wrecked, but now he would have the extra burden of taking care of the pilot. when he reached the nose of the helicopter he saw that the pilot, untangling herself from the controls to get up, was harriet hazeltyne.
