He hung on the edge of a sheer drop, his feet inches from where moist soil showed the meshed tendrils of subterranean growth. To one side showed more wet earth, graying as it dried beneath the wind and sun. Above lay apparent firmness.
He eased towards it, moving an inch at a time, pressing his body hard against the dirt so as to diminish the strain. His boots stabbed at the mesh of tendrils, held, and allowed his free hand to find a fresh purchase. He crawled spiderlike up the slope to comparative safety. Finally, knife in hand, he reached the secure refuge of a shallow depression in a circling cup of embedded stone.
His face down, he fought to control the quivering of his muscles, the reaction from sudden and unexpected exertion. Slowly the roar of pulsing blood faded in his ears and the rasp of his breathing eased, as did the pounding of his heart. He rolled and looked at the knife in his hand, then thrust it at his boot. He missed and tried again, this time stooping to make sure the blade was in its sheath.
He stiffened as he saw the cluster of hemispheres at his side.
They were two inches across, marbled with a peculiar pattern of red and black stippled with yellow. He had seen that pattern before. Every man at the station had seen it, but it was essential to be sure.
Dumarest took a small folder from his pocket. It was filled with colored depictions of various types of fungi both in their early stages of growth and at maturity. He riffled the pages and found what he wanted. Holding the page beside the hemispheres at his side he checked each of fifteen confirming details.
Slowly he put the book away.
It was the dream of every prospector on Scar. It was the jackpot, the big find, the one thing which could make them what they wanted to be. There were the rare and fabulously valuable motes which could live within the human metabolism, acting as a symbiote and giving longevity, heightened awareness, enhanced sensory appreciation and increased endurance.
There was golden spore all around him, in a place which he had almost died to find.
* * *
Clemdish lifted his head his eyes widening as he looked at Dumarest. "Earl, what the hell happened to you?"
He rose as Dumarest slumped to the ground. His gray tunic, pants and boots were scarred; blood oozed from beneath his fingernails; his face was haggard with fatigue.
"I told you not to go," said Clemdish. "I warned you it was a waste of time. What the hell happened? Did you fall?"
Dumarest nodded.
"You need food," said the little man, "water, something to give you a lift." He produced a canteen; from a phial he shook a couple of tablets and passed them to Dumarest. "Swallow these; get them down." He watched as Dumarest obeyed. "I was getting ready to come after you. Man, you look a wreck!"
"I feel one." Dumarest drew a deep breath, filling his lungs and expelling the vitiated air. The drugs he had swallowed were beginning to work; already he felt less fatigued. "I fell," he said. "I went down too far and couldn't get back. The surface was like jelly. It refused to support my weight."
"It wouldn't." Clemdish dug again into his pack and produced a slab of concentrates. "Chew on this." He watched as Dumarest ate. "I tried to tell you," he reminded. "I told you climbing those hills was a waste of time. You could have got yourself killed, and for what?"
Dumarest said nothing.
"You've lost your markers too," pointed out the little man. "Not that it matters. We've got plenty more, too damn many." He scowled up at the sun. "A waste of time," he muttered. "Too much time."
"All right," said Dumarest. "You've told me. Now forget it."
"We can't," said Clemdish. "We daren't. We've got to get back before it gets too hot."
He rose from where he sat and kicked at a clump of mottled fungi. Already the growths were much larger than they had been when Dumarest began his climb. The entire land surface of the planet was literally bursting with life as the growing heat of the sun triggered the dormant spores into development. The pace would increase even more as the summer progressed, the fungi swelling visibly in the compressed and exaggerated life cycle of the planet.
To the visiting tourists it made a unique spectacle. To the prospectors and those depending on the harvest for their living it meant a dangerous and nerve-racking race against time.
Dumarest ate the last of the concentrate, washing it down with a drink of tepid water. He lay back, his face shadowed against the sun, feeling the twitch and tension of overstrained muscles. The journey from the place where he had found the golden spore had been a nightmare. The ground had yielded too easily and he'd been forced to make a wide detour, fighting for every inch of upward progress. By the time he had reached safety, he had been practically exhausted.
Then had come the downward journey, easier but still not without risk. Fatigue had made him clumsy, and twice he had taken nasty falls. But now he was safe, able to rest, to relax and feel the ground firm and stable beneath his back.
"Earl!"
Dumarest jerked, suddenly conscious that he had drifted into sleep.
"Earl!" It was Clemdish. "Earl! Come and look at this!"
He was standing well over to one side, a mass of fungi reaching halfway to his knee; those were twisted, tormented growths, striped with puce and emerald. He called again as Dumarest climbed to his feet.
"What is it?"
"Something good, I think. Come and check it out, will you?" Clemdish waited until Dumarest had joined him and then pointed. "That's a basidiomycete if ever I saw one. Worth collecting, too. Agreed?"
Dumarest dropped to his knees and examined what Clemdish had found. Ringed by the puce and emerald growths was a group of spiraloids of cream dotted with flecks of brown and topaz, the whole cluster seeming to be the towers of some fairyland castle. He reached into his pocket and withdrew the folder. It was already open to show the pictures of golden spore. He flipped the pages until he found the information he wanted.
"You're right," he told the little man. "This one is worth money. We'd better mark it and clear the area."
He swept his boot across the surrounding growths as Clemdish returned to the packs for one of the thin rods. He thrust it close beside the cluster of spirals. Around the rod was wrapped a ten-foot length of thread and the top was split so as to hold a card marked with their names. All the ground within the compass of the thread was theirs to harvest.
Clemdish joined Dumarest in clearing away the unwanted fungi to give the selected growth more room to develop.
"That should do it," he said. "Our first claim. Unless someone steals our marker," he added, "or switches cards, or gets here before we do."
"You're a pessimist," said Dumarest.
"It's been known," insisted Clemdish. "You should know that. Some of the boys last season swore that someone had shifted their markers. If they find him, hell never do it again." He looked at the sun and ran his tongue over his lips. "Let's get moving," he suggested. "You all right now, Earl?"
"I can manage."
"Well head directly back," said Clemdish. "Cut a straight line from here to the station. If we see anything good we'll mark it, but we won't stray from the route. We can come out later," he added, "when you've had a chance to get some rest. Run a circle close to the station and check out a couple of spots I know. You agree. Earl?"
Dumarest nodded.
"Then let's go. I'll take the lead."
"Just a minute," said Dumarest. "There's something you should know." He looked at the other man. "We've found the jackpot," he said quietly. "There's a clump of golden spore on the other side of the hills."
Clemdish sat down, his legs suddenly weak.
Chapter Four
Heldar felt the gnawing pain in his chest, the scratching irritation and the liquid demanding release. He coughed; the initial expelling of air triggered a bout of hacking which left him weak. Grimly, he looked at the red flecks staining his hand.
The small, round vendor with the ruff of yellow at wrists and ankles looked at him with sympathy. "You need help," he said. "Why don't you see a physician?"
Heldar grunted. The station had no resident medical technician, only a snap-freeze cabinet where the severely infured could be held in stasis and the deep-sleep facilities, which could be adapted to promote healing. All else had to wait until a traveling physician arrived to ply his trade. Such doctors had a strict order of priority: money came first. Heldar had to raise a loan.
Craden shook his head when Heldar mentioned it. He was new to Scar, but was far from inexperienced. Casually he inspected one of the yellow ruffs circling his wrist, "You work for the company, don't you? Wouldn't they make you an advance?"