Title: Muck Man
Author: Dodge, Fremont
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.


*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Muck Man" ***


MUCK MAN

BY FREMONT DODGE

The work wasn't hard, but there were some sacrifices.
You had to give up hope and freedom--and being human!

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, November 1963.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


I

The girl with the Slider egg glittering in her hair watched the
bailiff lead Asa Graybar out of the courtroom. He recognized her as
old Hazeltyne's daughter Harriet, no doubt come to see justice done.
She didn't have the hothouse-flower look Asa would have expected in a
girl whose father owned the most valuable of the planetary franchises.
She was not afraid to meet his eye, the eye of a judicially certified
criminal. There was, perhaps, a crease of puzzlement in her brow, as if
she had thought crimes were committed by shriveled, rat-faced types,
and not by young biological engineers who still affected crewcuts.

Tom Dorr, Hazeltyne's general manager, was her escort. Asa felt
certain, without proof, that Dorr was the man who had framed him for
the charge of grand theft by secreting a fresh Slider egg in his
laboratory. The older man stared at Asa coldly as he was led out of
the courtroom and down the corridor back to jail.

Jumpy, Asa's cellmate, took one look at his face as he was put back
behind bars.

"Guilty," Jumpy said.

Asa glared at him.

"I know, I know," Jumpy said hastily. "You were framed. But what's the
rap?"

"Five or one."

"Take the five," Jumpy advised. "Learn basket-weaving in a nice
air-conditioned rehab clinic. A year on a changeling deal will seem a
lot longer, even if you're lucky enough to live through it."

Asa took four steps to the far wall of the cell, stood there briefly
with his head bent and turned to face Jumpy.

"Nope," Asa said softly. "I'm going into a conversion tank. I'm going
to be a muck man, Jumpy. I'm going out to Jordan's Planet and hunt
Slider eggs."

"Smuggling? It won't work."

Asa didn't answer. The Hazeltyne company had gone after him because
he had been working on a method of keeping Slider eggs alive. The
Hazeltyne company would be happy to see him mark time for five years
of so-called social reorientation. But if he could get out to Jordan's
Planet, with his physiology adapted to the environment of that wretched
world, he could study the eggs under conditions no laboratory could
duplicate. He might even be able to cause trouble for Hazeltyne.

His only problem would be staying alive for a year.



An interview with a doctor from the Conversion Corps was required
for all persons who elected changeling status. The law stated that
potential changelings must be fully informed of the rights and hazards
of altered shape before they signed a release. The requirement held
whether or not the individual, like Asa, was already experienced.

By the time humanity traveled to the stars, medical biology had made
it possible to regenerate damaged or deficient organs of the body.
Regeneration was limited only by advanced age. Sometime after a man's
two hundredth year his body lost the ability to be coaxed into growing
new cells. A fifth set of teeth was usually one's last. As long as
senescence could be staved off, however, any man could have bulging
biceps and a pencil waist, if he could pay for the treatment.

Until the medical associations declared such treatments unethical there
was even a short fad of deliberate deformities, with horns at the
temples particularly popular.

From regeneration it was a short step to specialized regrowth. The
techniques were perfected to adapt humans to the dozen barely habitable
worlds man had discovered. Even on Mars, the only planet outside Earth
in the solar system where the human anatomy was remotely suitable, a
man could work more efficiently with redesigned lungs and temperature
controls than he could inside a pressure suit. On more bizarre planets
a few light-years away the advantages of changeling bodies were
greater.

Unfortunately for planetary development companies, hardly anyone
wanted to become a changeling. High pay lured few. So a law was passed
permitting a convicted criminal to earn his freedom by putting in one
year as a changeling for every five years he would otherwise have had
to spend in rehabilitation.

"What types of changelings do you have orders for right now, doctor?"
Asa asked the man assigned to his case. It would look suspicious if he
asked for Jordan's Planet without some preliminary questions.

"Four," answered the doctor.

"Squiffs for New Arcady. Adapted for climbing the skycraper trees and
with the arm structure modified into pseudo-wings or gliding. Then we
need spiderinos for Von Neumann Two. If you want the nearest thing we
have to Earth, there's Caesar's Moon, where we'd just have to double
your tolerance for carbon monoxide and make you a bigger and better
gorilla than the natives. Last, of course, there's always a need for
muck men on Jordan's Planet."

The doctor shrugged, as if naturally no one could be expected to
choose Jordan's Planet. Asa frowned in apparent consideration of the
alternatives.

"What's the pay range?" he asked.

"Ten dollars a day on Caesar's Moon. Fifteen on New Arcady or Von
Neumann Two. Twenty-five on Jordan's."

Asa raised his eyebrows.

"Why such a difference? Everyone knows about muck men living in the
mud while they hunt Slider eggs. But don't your conversions make the
changeling comfortable in his new environment?"

"Sure they do," said the doctor. "We can make you think mud feels
better than chinchilla fur and we can have you jumping like a
grasshopper despite the double gravity. But we can't make you like the
sight of yourself. And we can't guarantee that a Slider won't kill you."

"Still," Asa mused aloud, "it would mean a nice bankroll waiting at the
end of the year."

He leaned forward to fill in the necessary form.



Since it was cheaper to transport a normal human than to rig special
environments in a spaceship, every planet operated its own conversion
chambers. On the space freighter that carried him from Earth Asa
Graybar was confined to a small cabin that was opened only for a guard
to bring meals and take out dirty dishes. He was still a prisoner.

Sometimes he could hear voices in the passageway outside, and once
one of them sounded like a woman's. But since women neither served on
spaceships nor worked in the dome settlements on harsher worlds, he
decided it was his imagination. He might have been dead cargo for all
he learned about space travel.

Nevertheless his time was not wasted. He had as a companion, or
cellmate, another convict who had elected conversion to muck man. More
important, his companion had done time on Jordan's Planet before and
had wanted to return.

"It's the Slider eggs," explained Kershaw, the two-time loser. "The
ones you see on Earth knock your eyes out, but they've already begun
to die. There's nothing like a fresh one. And I'm not the first to
go crazy over them. When I was reconverted and got home I had nine
thousand dollars waiting for me. That'll buy a two-year-old egg that
flashes maybe four times a day. So I stole a new one and got caught."

Asa had held a Slider egg in his hand as he gazed into it. He could
understand. The shell was clear as crystal, taut but elastic, while
the albumen was just as clear around the sparkling network of organic
filaments that served as a yolk. Along these interior threads played
tiny flashes of lightning, part of some unexplained process of life.
Electrical instruments picked up static discharges from the egg, but
the phenomenon remained a mystery.

Hardly anyone faced with the beauty of a Slider's egg bothered to
question its workings. For a few expectant moments there would be only
random, fitful gleamings, and then there would be a wild coruscation of
light, dancing from one filament to the next in a frenzy of brilliance.

It took about four years for a Slider egg to die. Beauty, rarity and
fading value made the eggs a luxury item like nothing the world had
ever seen. If Asa had found a means of keeping them alive it would have
made him wealthy at the expense of the Hazeltyne monopoly.

"You know what I think?" Kershaw asked. "I think those flashes are
the egg calling its momma. They sparkle like a million diamonds when
you scoop one out of the muck, and right away a Slider always comes
swooping out of nowhere at you."

"I've been meaning to ask you," Asa said. "How do you handle the
Sliders?"

Kershaw grinned.

"First you try to catch it with a rocket. If you miss you start leaping
for home. All this time you're broadcasting for help, you understand.
When the Slider catches you, you leap up while it buries its jaws in
the mud where you were just standing. You dig your claws in its back
and hang on while it rolls around in the mud. Finally, if the 'copter
comes--and if they don't shoot off your head by mistake--you live to
tell the tale."


II

Asa Graybar kept his normal form on Jordan's Planet just long enough to
learn the discomfort of double gravity. He was told he needed another
physical examination and was taken right in to a doctor. His heart was
pounding to keep his blood circulating on this massive world, but the
doctor had apparently learned to make allowances.

"Swallow this," said the doctor after making a series of tests.

Asa swallowed the capsule. Two minutes later he felt himself beginning
to lose consciousness.

"This is it!" he thought in panic.

He felt someone ease him back down onto a wheeled stretcher. Before
consciousness faded completely he realized that no one got a chance
to back out of becoming a changeling, that he was on his way to the
conversion tank right now.

When he finally awoke he felt well rested and very comfortable. But for
a long time he was afraid to open his eyes.

"Come on, Graybar," said a deep, booming voice. "Let's test our wings."

It was not Kershaw's voice, but it had to be Kershaw. Asa opened his
eyes.

Everyone had seen pictures of muck men. It was different having one
stand beside you. Kershaw looked much like an enormous frog except that
his head was still mostly human. He was sitting on webbed feet, his
lower legs bent double under huge thighs, and his trunk tilted forward
so that his arms dangled to the ground. The arms were as thick around
as an ordinary man's legs. The hands had become efficient scoops, with
broad fingers webbed to the first joint and tipped with spade-like
claws. The skin was still pinkish but had become scaly. Not a thread of
hair showed anywhere on the body, not even on the head.

This, Asa realized, was what he looked like himself.

It would have been more bearable if the head had not retained strong
traces of humanity. The nostrils flared wide and the jaws hardly
emerged from the neck, but the ears were human ears and the eyes, under
those horny ridges, were human eyes. Asa felt sure that the eyes could
still weep.

He started to walk forward and tipped over on his side. Kershaw laughed.

"Come to daddy, babykins," Kershaw said, holding out his hands. "Only
try hopping this time. And take it easy."

Asa pushed himself upright with one arm and tried a small hop. Nerve
and muscle coordination was perfect. He found himself leaping as high
as Kershaw's head.

"That's the way," Kershaw said approvingly. "Now get this on and we'll
go outside."

Asa snapped on a belt and breech cloth combination that had flaps of
fabric dangling from the belt in front and behind. He followed as
Kershaw pushed open a sliding door to lead the way out of the room
where they had been left to revive from conversion.



They went into a courtyard partly covered by a roof projecting from
the Hazeltyne company's dome settlement. The far half of the courtyard
was open to the gray drizzle that fell almost ceaselessly from the sky
of Jordan's Planet and turned most of its surface into marsh and mud
flats. A high wall enclosed the far portion of the courtyard. Ranged
along the wall were thirty stalls for muck men.

From fifty yards across the courtyard a muck man bounded over to them
in two leaps. Attached to a harness across his shoulders and chest were
a gun and a long knife.

"Names?" he growled. He was a foot taller than Graybar and big
everywhere in proportion.

"Kershaw. I'm back, Furston."

"I'm Graybar."

"Kershaw again? Just start in where you left off, sucker. Come on,
you." He pointed to Asa and leaped to the open portion of the courtyard.

"Do what he says," Kershaw whispered to Graybar. "He's sort of a trusty
and warden and parole officer rolled into one."

Asa was put through a series of exercises to get him used to his
distorted body, to teach him how to leap and how to dig. He was shown
how to operate the radio he would carry and how to fire the pencil-slim
rockets of this gun. Finally he was told to eat a few berries from a
native vine. He did so and immediately vomited.

Furston laughed.

"That's to remind you you're still a man," Furston said, grinning.
"Everything that grows on this planet is poison. So if you got any
ideas of hiding out till your term is up, forget 'em. Right here is
where you eat."

Asa turned without a word and hopped feebly away from Furston. He
lifted his head to breathe deeply and saw two humans watching him from
an observation tower on the roof.

He leaped twenty feet into the air for a closer look.

Gazing at him with repugnance, after witnessing the end of his session
with Furston, were Harriet Hazeltyne and general manager Tom Dorr.

The girl's presence merely puzzled Asa, but Dorr's being here worried
him. Dorr had tried to get rid of him once and was now in an excellent
position to make the riddance permanent.

At supper that night, squatting on the ground beside a low table with
the dozen other muck men operating from the dome, Asa asked what the
two were doing out here.

"The girl will inherit this racket some day, won't she?" asked one of
the others. "She wants to see what kind of suckers are making her rich."

"Maybe that guy Dorr brought her along to show her what a big wheel
he is," said one of the others. "Just hope he doesn't take over the
operations."


III

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.

[Illustration: A SLIDER EGG]

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.


IV

"Are you hurt?" Asa asked her. She reached for his shoulder to steady
herself as she climbed out of the machine.

"I guess not," she said. "But taking a fall in this gravity is no fun.
From the way my face feels I ought to be getting a black eye pretty
soon."

"What happened?"

"I made a fool of myself." She made a face back in the direction of
the settlement. "Dorr wasn't going to come after you. He said anyone
who talked back to him should try arguing with the Sliders."

She looked up at the machine-gun on the helicopter.

"They feed at night, you know. And they eat their own kind," she said.
"The Slider you killed would draw them like ants to jam."

Asa glanced around quickly to make sure no Sliders had already come. He
eyed the helicopter with distaste at the thought of what a flimsy fort
it would make.

"Anyway," Harriet said, "I told him he couldn't just leave you here
and we started arguing. I lost my temper. He thought he had brought me
to Jordan's Planet on a fancy tour. I told him the real reason I was
here was to check up for my father on the way he was running things and
there seemed to be a lot wrong. So he told me very politely I could run
things to suit myself and he walked off."

She shrugged, as if to indicate that she had made a mess of things.

"And you took the helicopter by yourself," Asa said, as if he could
hardly believe it yet.

"Oh, back on Earth I can make a helicopter do stunts. But I wasn't used
to this gravity. I don't suppose you could make this machine stand up
straight?"

Asa tugged at the body of the Slider until he got it off the skids of
the plane. He pulled with all his strength at the rotor blade sunk in
the mud, but the weight of the helicopter was upon it and the mud held
it with a suction of its own. After a few minutes he had to give up.

"We fight off the Sliders, then," she said, as matter of factly as if
that problem was settled. "If it's any comfort, I know how to handle
the machine-gun."

"Nope. In this drizzle, at night, the Sliders would be on us before
we could see them. We've got to try to get back." He stood in thought
while she stared at him patiently. "What happened to the other muck men
who went out today?" he asked.

"They were called in when the 'copter came out the first time. Some of
them may not have got back yet."



Asa started talking into his radio.

"Calling all muck men. This is Asa Graybar. All muck men, listen. This
is Graybar. I am five miles out with Miss Hazeltyne, who came to rescue
me after I saved Kershaw from a Slider. The helicopter is smashed.
We're slogging in."

He looked at her for a nod of confirmation and repeated the message.

"Graybar?" came a voice in his earphones. "What do you want?"

Asa grinned at Harriet as he continued.

"Go on back to the settlement. Tell the others. Then organize a party
to come help us. Bearing 150 degrees."

"Right," said the unidentified voice.

"I got it too," said another voice in the headset. "Muck men stick
together."

Good, Asa thought. At least two muckers were still out. They would
tell the others.

"Cancel all that," said a third voice. "This is Dorr speaking. Nobody
goes out until I give the word."

Asa didn't fancy waiting.

"By authority of Miss Hazeltyne," he said rapidly, "Dorr is no longer
manager. I am acting manager." He saw Harriet's eyebrows go up, for she
couldn't hear the other end of what was going on. "Disregard Dorr,"
he continued. "If you can help us get back, Miss Hazeltyne will make
changes to benefit all of us."

Before he could say any more his ear was stricken with the noise of
loud static. Dorr was making sure no more radio messages got through.
Asa quickly told Harriet what had happened.

The girl smiled with one side of her mouth.

"Fine," she said, "but how am I supposed to cross the muck?"

"On my back," Asa turned and entered the helicopter cabin. All the time
he had been talking he had been worrying about the fact that he had
only three rockets left for his gun. Quickly he checked the ammunition
for the machine-gun, found it was the same caliber, and felt that at
last one break had gone his way. He took the plastic ammunition belts
outside.

"Load your pockets with these," he told the girl, pulling the rockets
from their loops. Then, tying the plastic belts together, he fashioned
a sling she could sit in with her legs at his sides. Finally he handed
her his gun.

"If you see a Slider," he said, "shoot for the head. Now climb on and
hold tight to my gun harness and we'll try our luck."



When she was astride his back Asa checked his compass and started
jumping. At once he knew that the going would be much harder than he
had imagined. Alone he could leap twenty-five yards, but her weight cut
him down to about five yards. He kept going, realizing that the task
was almost beyond his strength and not daring to tell her that even if
his strength held out they might not even find the settlement in this
drizzle.

Hopping, sometimes staggering, skirting the wider pools in the swamp.
Asa managed to go about a mile before he had to stop and rest. Harriet
climbed out of the sling and settled down on a patch of weeds, a wet
and slippery mat upon the mud.

"We're going to make it," she said cheerfully.

"I hope so," he said. "Not just for ourselves. A lot of changes should
be made. There must be millions of eggs on this planet. You're getting
only a couple hundred a year."

He was panting between sentences and stopped talking until he could
catch his breath.

"For one thing," he continued, "rockets are the wrong weapon against
the Sliders. Flame throwers would be better. Of course they're a
lot heavier than guns. But everything about the way you go after
eggs is wrong. It's criminal to send one man out alone. It's utterly
irresponsible to have only one helicopter. You're putting a price on
eggs in terms of human lives. Muck men are human, you know, no matter
what we look like."

"You are very human," she said softly, "and very brave."

He returned her smile, adding, "And we'll both be very dead unless we
get going."

They had traveled considerably less than a mile when he had to stop
again.

"How would you run things here?" Harriet asked.

"Start with new premises. There's no need to make monsters out of the
muck men. Double their strength, and perhaps give them web feet, but
why legs like a frog? If I could walk normally I could be pulling you
on a sled. And why shovel hands instead of proper tools? Of course you
would still have to give them a skin for this weather."

Harriet's clothing was sodden and streaked with mud, and her hair
was hanging down her head in wet, dark tangles that looked like so
much boiled spinach. The bump when the helicopter fell had raised a
blue-black swelling around her left eye. Yet, it occurred to Asa, she
hadn't voiced the slightest complaint. She was listening intently to
his advice.

"I would send parties of three men out in a helicopter," he continued.
"One would guard the ship while the other two hunted eggs. As soon as
they found an egg they'd hop into the ship and be safe."



They started off again. At the first leap Asa saw a Slider a hundred
yards away. As soon as his feet hit the ground he whispered to Harriet.
She climbed out of the sling and held her gun ready while he drew his
knife to wait. Long minutes passed before he decided they had not been
seen and it was safe to continue.

Next time they stopped the girl turned to Asa with a frown and asked,
"Just how does Dorr think he can get away with this?"

"Simple." Asa shrugged. "He'll say the Sliders got us despite all he
could do. No muck man who could tell a different story will live long
enough to get back to Earth."

The sound of a rocket explosion came from somewhere off to their right.
It was the loveliest sound Asa had ever heard.

"The rescue party!" he shouted. "Let's go!"

Knowing that rockets meant Sliders, but knowing also that no Slider was
a match for a team of armed men, Asa leaped forward with renewed vigor.
Once he misjudged his strength and landed in a puddle, splashing both
of them with slimy water, but the girl on his back only laughed. They
heard the sound of another rocket, and Harriet fired three shots of
her own to attract attention. In a few more minutes they were happily
welcoming six muck men.

"I heard your message," said one of them, "and back at the settlement
Kershaw told us what had happened. Furston tried to stop us and wound
up with a knife in his belly. A couple of the others were afraid to
come, and two were shot from the tower by Dorr, but the rest are with
you."

"Tom Dorr will be tried for murder," Harriet promised grimly.

With different men taking turns carrying Harriet for short distances
they began to make progress rapidly. The Slider the men had been firing
at was dead and no more were sighted before they came to the settlement.

Dorr was waiting for them. He fired from the tower, his machine-gun
burst of rockets cutting through one man in mid-leap. Asa's party
hugged the mud and fired back. Plastic showered from the tower window,
and dust spurted from the concrete around it.

"Keep me covered," Asa shouted. He took the gun from Harriet and leaped
madly forward until he was under the shelter of the side of the dome.
He waited for one more salvo from his party and jumped to the tower
itself.

Dorr had vanished, driven out of the tower by the rockets. Asa waved
to the others to come forward and hopped into the main quarters of the
dome.

He had never been in this part of the settlement. Dorr could be lying
in ambush for him. Asa moved cautiously, but he was confident that
his own adjustment to the gravity of the planet would give him the
advantage in any sudden meeting.



He looked around the corner and down some stairs just in time to see
the discredited manager, holding a sack in one hands, struggle to open
a door. Asa fired and missed. The next moment Dorr was outside. Asa
leaped to the floor below.

One of the normal humans who lived in the settlement came out of
another room, saw Asa and dodged back out of sight.

Outside, Asa could see Dorr laboring to run along the paved road that
led to the spaceship a quarter of a mile away. The fugitive turned once
and fired wildly as Asa leaped after him. The mist was turning into
heavy rain, and it was getting harder to see.

Another rocket exploded somewhere out in front of Asa. The sound was
followed by a scream. One more leap and Asa began firing himself.

A Slider was gently taking into its mouth three eggs spilled from the
sack lying beside what was left of Tom Dorr.

One of Asa's shots destroyed the Slider, destroying the eggs, too as
the monster's head exploded. Asa didn't think the eggs mattered much
right now.

He shuffled slowly back to the settlement, deciding to accept when
Harriet offered him the managership. Some day, if he had his way,
Slider eggs would be as common on Earth as diamonds.





*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Muck Man" ***

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