through The Pass, then he would be
unmolested, for Relegar was master of The Pass, and no entity of any
sort, not even as powerful a one as Netse, would touch any being in
whom Relegar was interested unless Relegar himself should order it.

If Grant could get through The Pass and across Division Street he
would be safe, for Aphrodite proper was under the jurisdiction of the
Planetary Police, and even Relegar respected them.

* * * * *

Grant found the constrictor on the second day, lying in a shallow pool
with only its dorsal spines showing. Working slowly and carefully and
entirely under water, he located the saurian's head, concealed in a
clump of floating grass. The reptile was still in something of a
torpor from its meal, and Grant had no difficulty in approaching it
through the water and attacking it with the heat-gun on the soft part
of the neck below the head.

The first bolt must have gone through and severed its spinal column,
but Grant risked destruction from the threshing body long enough to
burn the head off entirely. He got out on solid ground and waited
until sundown for the monster's contortions to die. Then he worked
fast. The flying scavenger-foxes were already settling on the
constrictor's back and tearing out great chunks of flesh. He went back
under water and cut out the saurian's gizzard with the heat-ray. He
dragged it off to one side and tremblingly cut it open with his knife,
and he was relieved and exultant when he recovered all fifteen of the
stones. The bag had disintegrated, but he put the stones carefully in
his pockets.

Then he went back once more. He cut off a piece of the hide two feet
square. He took only the outer hide, which was dry and which held the
great iridescent scales that formed isotopes after death. From some
marsh-bamboo and some wire-vines he formed a shield. By that time it
was midnight. He turned his light on the pool where the saurian had
been, and shuddered. The water was dull red, and alive with creatures
fighting each other to get to the carcass. The surface was covered
with flying things, some small, some huge, all fighting, fighting.
Life on Venus was an eternal, bloody fight. This slaughter, once
started, would go on for weeks, until the fighting creatures in this
immediate area of the swamp were exhausted.

Grant snapped off the light as clouds of flying things arose. He
started down the neck of dry land and walked all night,