Traders Risk | Page 6

of its element, screamed hideously and threshed water to froth, all its earlier ferocity vanished under the imminent and unfamiliar threat of drowning. Jeff sank again and churned desperately to put distance between them.
He came up again, nearly strangled, to find that either he or the Zid had halved the distance between them. They were all but eye to eye when Jennifer caught him and towed him away toward the doubtful safety of the Island Queen.
Chafis Three and Four appeared from nowhere and stood solemnly by while the Zid weakened and sank with a final gout of bubbles.
"We must have your friend's help," Chafi Three said to Jennifer then, "to recover our investment."
Jeff wheeled on him incredulously. "Me go down there after that monster? Not on your--"
"He means the Scoop," Jennifer said. "They brought it ashore to help us out of the cabin. Why shouldn't it help them now?"
* * * * *
The Scoop came up out of the water so smoothly that the Island Queen hardly rocked, dangling the limp form of the Zid from its great rubbery lips like a drowned kitten.
"Here," Jennifer said.
The Scoop touched its vast face to the Queen's rail and dropped the unconscious body to the deck. The Zid twitched weakly and coughed up froth and water.
Jeff backed away warily. "Damn it, are we going through all that again? Once it gets its wind back--"
Chafi Three interrupted him this time. "The crystal now. We must have it to quiet the Zid until it is safely caged again."
Jennifer turned suddenly firm. "No. I won't let this EI informer know about that."
The Ciriimians were firmer.
"It will not matter now. Galactic Adjustment will extend aid to both Calaxia and Terra, furnishing substitutes for the crystals you deal in. There will be no loss to either faction."
"No loss?" Jennifer repeated indignantly. "But then there won't be any demand for our crystals! We'll lose everything we've gained."
"Not so," Chafi Three assured her. "Galactic will offer satisfactory items in exchange, as well as a solution to Terra's problems."
The Scoop, sensing Jennifer's surrender, slid its ponderous bulk nearer and opened its mouth, leaving half an acre of lower jaw resting flush with the Island Queen's deck. Without hesitation, Jennifer stepped over the rail and vanished into the yawning pinkish cavern beyond.
Appalled, Jeff rushed after her. "Jennifer! Have you lost your mind?"
"There is no danger," Chafi Three assured him. "Scoops are benevolent as well as intelligent, and arrived long ago at a working agreement with the islanders. This one has produced a crystal and is ready to be relieved of it, else it would not have attached itself to a convenient human."
Jeff said dizzily, "The Scoops make the crystals?"
"There is a nidus just back of a fleshy process in its throat, corresponding to your own tonsils, which produces a crystal much as your Terran oyster secretes a pearl. The irritation distracts the Scoops from their meditations--they are a philosophical species, though not mechanically progressive--and prompts them to barter their strength for a time to be rid of it."
* * * * *
Jennifer reappeared with a walnut-sized crystal in her hand and vaulted across the rail.
"There goes another Scoop," she said resignedly. "The Queen will have to tack with the wind for a while until another one shows up."
"So that's why your sails bellied backward when you came in to harbor," said Jeff. "The thing was towing you."
A thin, high streak of vapor-trail needling down toward them from the sunrise rainbow turned the channel of his thought.
"That will be Satterfield and his task force," Jeff told the Chafis. "I think you're going to find yourselves in an argument over that matter of squeezing Terra out of the crystal trade."
They reassured him solemnly.
"Terra has no real need of the crystals. We can offer a tested genetics program that will eliminate racial anxiety within a few generations, and supply neural therapy equipment--on a trade basis, of course--that will serve the crystals' purpose during the interim."
There should be a flaw somewhere, Jeff felt, but he failed to see one. He gave up trying when he found Jennifer eying him with uncharacteristic uncertainty.
"You'll be glad to get back to your patrol work," she said. It had an oddly tentative sound.
Somehow the predictable monotony of consulate work had never seemed less inviting. The prospect of ending his Calaxian tour and going back to a half-barren and jittery Earth appealed to Jeff even less.
"No," he said. "I'd like to stay."
"There's nothing to do but fish and sail around looking for Scoops ready to shed their crystals," Jennifer reminded him. "Still, Uncle Charlie has talked about settling in the Township and standing for Council election. Can you fish and sail, Jeff Aubray?"
The consulate rocket landed ashore, but Jeff ignored it.
"I can learn," he said.
--ROGER DEE

Transcriber's Note:
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