Part 2

He relaxed again. "Well, at the rate we're going, it'll be a long time before earth laboratories ever have the opportunity to mess around with our pal the zloor."

* * * * *

I got a chair and sat down facing him and said seriously, "Mike, brief me on what you and the other fellows have tried."

"You don't have to ask. That goes with membership in the club," he grinned. "Among other things, we've tried building a steel box around one of them with the idea of putting wheels on it later."

"That sounds good."

"Uh huh. The trouble was that when the zloor felt like moving he walked right through the side of the steel box like you or I'd walk through a wall of tissue paper."

"How about poisoning one?" I rapped. "You could get a dead one back a lot easier than--"

"They don't poison," he said, "and from what we can figure they're practically immortal. We have never found a dead one."

"What'd'ya mean, they don't poison?"

"Just that. Nap, that animal can eat _anything_ organic and thrive on it. Evidently, no poison that nature has ever produced affects it. At least, none of us have been able to dream one up."

"How about narcotics, something to dope it?"

He shook his head. "To begin with, some of these Martian plants produce narcotic effects that make the products of our poppy look like food for babes; but the zloor takes them in its stride. It's _really_ got a cast iron stomach. We've never been able to locate anything it won't eat and enjoy eating."

I didn't say anything for a long time. Then, "A Bazook-rifle would kill one."

"Sure," he said, "and splatter it all around the scenery at the same time. The laboratories need a _good_ specimen."

There was another long silence. Finally I said, "Why in the name of Wodo don't they sink into the ground if they weigh as much as all that?"

"They would, only they make a point of walking on rock. That must be one of the things that limits their spreading even more widely. They have to be able to forage on ground that supports very little vegetation."

"You could lift one with a derrick."

He said, "This is the fifth time I've been through this. Every guy that Westley Marks sends up here asks the same questions. Sure you could lift it with a derrick if the derrick was big enough. Do you have any idea of what it'd cost to bring a derrick of that size to Mars?

"And that's not the only thing, either. These zloors are gentle as lambs, but they hate to be confined against their will. That derrick'd have to have some awfully strong equipment to keep the zloor from breaking loose and ambling off. There's other angles there, too. Suppose your derrick did lift him into the shuttle. When you got the shuttle up to the space station, how'd you move the zloor from the shuttle to the station and then from the station to the rocket for Terra?"

He go up from the bed and went over to a little table to return with a bottle and a couple of glasses. He poured two drinks and handed me one. "Here," he said, "you look like you could use a quick one. Have a hair of a dog that's going to bite kert out of you before you ever leave Mars."

I grated, "I could stand the rest of it, but what burns me up is that _makron_ Westley Marks. Here he is getting rich on the project. Besides what he makes from the government, he's bet every one of us so much that we'll all be out our life savings when we go back."

"Brother Nap, you have said it," Mike Holiday said feelingly. He tilted the glass to his lips and drank deeply. I was right behind him.

* * * * *

It was more than two years later when I walked into the office of Westley Marks. I noted with pleasure that he still looked as aristocratic as ever.

"Ah," he said, "Mr. _Napoleon_ Prescott. As I recall, the last time we met you objected to my calling your namesake a 'bust.' Don't tell me that we have an additional bust in--"

I loved it. I loved every word of it. And he must have seen that I did.

"What are you grinning about?" he barked. It was the first time I had seen his poise disturbed.

"Frankie," I told him, "is at the spaceport right now. Johnny will be down on the next shuttle. As you can imagine, the shuttle was pretty well strained to capacity to bring even one at a time. It was no trouble in space of course, since they were weightless in free fall, but entering the gravitational--"

He put his hands on the top of the desk and half came to his feet. His eyes were wide. "Who are _Frankie_ and Johnny?"

I feigned surprise. "Frankie and Johnny are sweethearts--a couple of zloors, in this case. Remember? You sent me for them. I thought a male and a female would be best."

He slumped back in his chair. "You aren't lying?"

I didn't say anything.

"How ... did you do it?"

"With peach pits," I said.

"Peach pits!"

"Peach pits. They like apricot pits too, and sometimes prune seeds."

"What in the world are you talking about, Prescott? Have you lost your mind?"

I opened the humidor on his desk, took out a cigar, smelled it, bit off the end, lit it, and took a deep puff before answering him. I settled down into a comfortable chair and pointed the lighted end of the cigar in his direction.

"Between one or the other of us we had tried everything, everything. I realized finally that it would have to be an entirely different approach."

* * * * *

I took another satisfying drag on the cigar, then went on. "I tried lettuce, cabbage, corn, string-beans--everything in fact that the hydroponic tanks on Mars could supply in the way of earth type food. None of it worked."

"What in hell are you talking about?" Marks blurted.

I ignored him. "Finally it came to me. Lettuce and the other vegetables I offered would be too _light_ for them. I tried walnut hulls and then peach pits, and that worked like a charm."

"You must be insane."

"You don't seem to understand, Marks," I told him. "There was no other way of getting a zloor on board an earth bound rocket, so I made pets of a couple of them. They love peach pits--regular delicacy for them." I added reflectively. "You'd be surprised how well trained I've got Frankie and Johnny; I'll hate to give them up."

I tapped the ash of the cigar off on his heavy carpet and said, "However, business is business. Let's see, by our contract you owe me five credits for each month I've been gone, plus a seven hundred credit bonus for bringing back two live zloors, then there's that thousand credit wager we made."

He snapped on his inter-office communicator and growled instructions to his secretary to find whether or not I had brought back two live zloors in the Mars rocket. We sat there silently while she checked. I puffed on the cigar with appreciation and dropped the ashes, pointedly, on the floor. He was irritated, but wouldn't give me the satisfaction of complaining.

I knew I was being childish, but I loved it.

The inter-office communicator buzzed and he listened to his secretary's report, then reached down into his desk for a checkbook.

He said while he was writing it, "I'm sure you'll be pleased to know, Prescott, that in spite of this sum I'm giving you, I'll still make a considerable profit on this deal."

I took the check and examined it carefully.

"Ummm," I told him. "But I wouldn't be very surprised if a good deal of that profit is going to be melting away."

"Eh? What do you mean?" he snapped.

I told him, "The other boys up on Mars are still well equipped with peach pits. They're all making pets too. The next few rockets from Mars are going to be loaded with zloors, Westley, old man. You're going to have a flock of bets to pay off--and, besides that, I'm wondering if the government is going to want that many zloors. As I understand it, two is all that they contracted for with you. Of course, you'll have to pay the boys for them--"

He didn't say anything as I left, fanning the check to dry it, but he looked as though he'd met his Waterloo.