It was no easy task he had set for himself. Her language was a series of barking consonants that were terribly hard for his Terran vocal chords to form and her thought processes were so primitive that it was like trying to talk to a four-year-old child in a strange language. But he did progress to the point where he could communicate simple ideas to her. Then he made the mistake of telling her that he wanted to find more of the rhizoid bearing fungus. Many, many more of them. When she understood what he wanted, she ran away and he did not see her again for nearly a week. And when he did see her again it was almost too late for her to be of any further use to him. He was prospecting alone, that day, Olger and D'ulio having set out to explore another section of the swamp belt. He had gone only a little way into the swamp when he saw Tiny struggling, half mad with fear, in the grip of two burly natives. They were tying her with vines to a fallen log and another native was coming forward, carrying something in his arms. Suddenly Mallard swore incredulously. The third native was carrying one of the white fungus stumps in his arms, carrying that deadly thing as carelessly as he would have carried a stick of wood! And then Mallard saw that he was wearing a helmet on his head, a metal helmet, ringed by some sort of crystal stones. The helmet was pouring a protective flood of soft green light downward, completely covering the native's body. He seemed unharmed by the green light but the spores from the fungus stump were shriveling the instant they were touched by the light. Mallard leaped forward, then, his blaster spitting wildly. His first shot brought down the native with the helmet and the other two went down a moment later. When he rushed forward and took the helmet off the dead native, Tiny cowered down on the ground, her child eyes rolling up fearfully at him. Mallard ignored her as he bent his head over the helmet. The thing was made of some purplish metal that was like nothing he had ever seen anywhere in the System. Certainly it had never been constructed by these primitive people and Mallard wondered briefly what alien race from what far distant star had left it here in these fetid swamps. But he was too filled with wild exultation to waste much time in idle speculation. The thing that mattered was that he now had a really perfect device for getting out the rhizoids. He alone had it! Let Olger and D'ulio keep their cumbersome Overton ray gun and squirm around the edge of the swamp belt with it. With this thing he could go deep inside the belt and bring out all the rhizoids he could carry.