going as far
as he could without submerging, getting out of range of the holocaust
around the dead constrictor. Eventually he came to a lavawood tree. He
examined it carefully, then climbed it. He found a crotch in the
limbs. He lay down and hung his arms and legs over the limbs, pulled
the shield over him, and went to sleep.

From the brilliant, blinding light of the sun even through the clouds,
and the vapor arising from the surface of the swamp, he knew it was
mid-afternoon when he awoke. He started up, but long habit stopped him
almost as soon as he moved. He opened his eyes and was fully awake,
listening for the sound that had awakened him. He heard it, a rasping
noise like the sound of a knife-blade scraped against the grain of a
fresh hog-skin. He looked across the swamp. Less than fifty yards away
was Relegar, walking toward him on the water. The sound came from the
scraping of his gray poison-mandibles against each other.

Relegar's mouth, as wide as his body, was open. The two bulbous eyes
gleamed like pieces of polished metal. They saw Grant. The spider's
sixteen jointed legs, that held his purple body three feet above the
water, moved too fast for Grant to follow them. The Uranian skittered
across a hundred feet of water and walked out on the land.

His bone-scraping voice came to Grant in the tree. "I'll take the
stones now." It was a sinister voice. Grant felt a crawling,
instinctive horror as the spider came toward him, its jointed legs
moving delicately. "You've saved me some trouble by finding them."

Grant overcame his paralysis and reached for the heat-gun. Relegar saw
the motion and stopped. "You can't hurt me with that heat-projector,"
he said. "You might shoot off a leg, but I'd have you half eaten
before you could fire a second bolt."

The knowledge hit Grant with what was almost a shock that there was
some way he could get the best of Relegar, otherwise the big spider
would not have spoken at all. He well knew that he couldn't kill
Relegar with the heat-gun. He could burn off a leg, yes, but he
doubted that the infra-rays would affect the spider's body at all. He
moved a little on the limbs, got a hold on the snake-skin shield, and
dropped to the ground.

Relegar darted forward to meet him. But ten feet away the spider
stopped, and Grant knew he had felt the radiation from the snake-skin.
Relegar's mouth hung open, his white fangs gleaming in the red maw.
The two bulbous eyes were suddenl