were dissolved and cellular activity
ceased. Latham grinned wryly. He doubted if it could touch him! There
was too much tsith within his alchemy. Nevertheless he moved and
worked ceaselessly. He could see that caricature of a Martian standing
back there watching.

Then it happened; the thing happened which was to prove both a promise
and a despair. Joel Latham felt a hardness at his heel, an irritating
lump inside his neoprene boot.

He moved back to higher ground, lifted his foot from the mire and
removed the boot. He shook something out into his hand. It was round
and hard and shiny, perhaps an inch in diameter. He held it aloft
between thumb and forefinger. The filtering sunlight struck it and
sent back lambent fires.

Joel Latham stared and gasped, felt his senses reeling.

"Purple!" he sobbed. "A purple Josmian!"

* * * * *

He was clambering back toward Kueelo. Forgetting the sweat in his eyes
and the insufferable heat, he held the thing aloft.

"Look at it!" he sobbed again. "Look at it shine! Look at the size!"

Kueelo was indeed looking. His yellowish eyes bulged. "A Josmian," he
whispered. "We've struck it rich!"

Joel Latham regarded the little caricature with astonishment.
Something of sanity came back to Joel Latham. "We?" he said. "I found
it. It's mine. I never knew you until four days ago!"

"But I stood by you," the Martian wailed. "Your friends deserted you,
but I stood by. Aren't we partners?"

Latham considered that. "No," he decided. "You stood by me as long as
I had credit for tsith! Until my money and lucky piece and dis-gun and
clothes were gone. Did you offer to help me out there?" he waved at
the swamp. "This Josmian is going to get me back to Callisto! Penger
ought to give me plenty for it."

What happened next was too swift for Latham's reeling senses. A
claw-like hand darted out, and Kueelo snatched the Josmian; his other
hand swung around and caught Latham hard across the throat, sending
him back into the swamp where he staggered for a moment and sat down
abruptly.

"Hey!" Latham protested. "Hey, look here--"

But the Martian was scuttling away like a huge fiddler crab, the
Josmian clutched in one scrawny fist.

Joel Latham came slowly up out of the mud, shaking his head and
grinning stupidly. It was very unkind of Kueelo to treat him like
this. He watched the Martian's departing figure. He made no effort to
follow--not at once--not until a