Read Ebook: A Zloor for Your Trouble! by Reynolds Mack Terry W E Illustrator

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Ebook has 186 lines and 9046 words, and 4 pages

A Zloor For Your Trouble

Prescott stood to make a young fortune if he could capture a martian zloor--dead or alive! Was there a catch to it? Only for the hunter!...

I was sitting on the cot in the little room at the rear of my hangarage, where I keep my equipment and most of my trophies, and cleaning my .257 Roberts when the knock came at the door. It was a sharp, decisive knock. Then the door opened and I saw Westley Marks for the first time. It didn't excite me.

He said, "Mr. Napoleon Prescott?"

I began to say, "Everybody calls me Nap," but then I didn't. There was something about this guy that didn't click with me. Say what you will against snap judgments, I still take my love at first sight and enmity often the same way.

He took in the rifle I was cleaning, and his eyebrows went up questioningly. "Collector?" he asked. Somehow or other he managed to put over the impression that he thought I didn't have the intellect to have a hobby.

"Not exactly," I told him. "This is a tool, not a collector's item."

There was almost a laugh in his voice now. "You mean you use that relic in your work?"

I put the gun down, told myself to take it easy, then said, "They've made a lot of developments in weapons since this rifle was popular, but it still has advantages on certain types of jobs. For instance, if I was after a Kodiac bear, up in the Alaska National Park--"

He snorted, "I'd take a Bazook-rifle and be sure who came out on top."

He didn't like my tone of voice, but he dropped the point and began looking around for a place to sit.

I hadn't asked him to sit down, and I didn't now.

I said, "Was there something I could do for you?"

"I wanted to hire you for a rather lengthy period," he told me.

"I'm all booked up for the next six months."

"This is something rather special."

"It always is when somebody wants you to cancel a job with a regular client."

He didn't like me any better than I liked him, that was obvious. He said, "This comes under the heading of work for the government."

I told him, "There are other professional hunters. Some of them nearly as good as I am." The last was sarcastic.

"Possibly better," he said, "but none of them are your size."

I could feel my face approaching the color of my hair at that one. "Keep my size out of it," I snapped. I indicated with a thumb a little statuette on my desk. "The guy my mother named me after was pint size too. He got along all right."

He looked over at Bonaparte. "Ummm," he said. "Napoleon was a big name once--but he's only a bust now."

"Listen," I told him, "you're asking for a bust yourself. Why don't you run along? I'm busy."

He ignored me, found a chair that had nothing but a few magazines on it, tossed them to the floor and sat down. "Your name was brought up because you're the smallest professional hunter on Earth. It'd save a few thousand credits in getting you to Mars and back."

That stopped me. "What in kert are you talking about?" I growled.

"The government wants a specimen, at least one, of a zloor."

"A what?"

"A zloor," he repeated. "A small Martian animal."

I scowled at him. "And just why does the government want a zloor?"

"That's a secret."

"Okay. I'll tell you another secret. Somebody else can catch the government a zloor. I've never been off Earth and I haven't any particular hankering to go now." I picked up the .257 Roberts again and reached for my oil can.

He got to his feet, something just this side of a sneer on his face, and said, "I doubt if you could have got one anyway."

I said easily, "If anyone else could catch it, I could."

"Wait a minute, buddy," I snapped. "Are you just sounding off or have you got a thousand credits you don't care what happens to?"

He turned and faced me. "I am willing to wager a thousand credits that you can't capture a zloor."

"How big are they?"

"About the size of a rabbit."

I glowered at him. "They very fast, or very poisonous, or what?"

He shrugged. "They can't run quite as fast as a common Terran hare, and I understand they're quite gentle."

"Then why haven't they been captured?"

"Among other things, Napoleon," he rolled my name over his tongue as though he got a big laugh from it, "there have been only a few hundred persons in all that have gone to Mars. Few of them, to my knowledge, have been interested in the life forms there. The expense of freight in space is much too high for Terran zoos to transport Martian life forms--particularly alive--considering the cost of duplicating in the space craft the living conditions necessary to--"

"All right," I snapped, "just a minute." I picked up the viso-phone and dialed rapidly. In seconds, Jerry Mason's friendly pan lit up the screen.

"Listen, Jerry," I said, "Have you ever heard of a Martian zloor?"

His eyebrows went up. "Sure, what--"

"Are they particularly fast?"

"No, of course not. But--"

"Are they dangerous?"

He grinned, but he was still puzzled. "I'd say they were about the least dangerous animal I ever heard of. But, Nap--"

"Just one more question, Jerry, I'm in a hurry. Do you think I could catch one?"

"I can't think of anything you could catch easier." He started to give one of his short bursts of laughter. "But--"

"Thanks, Jerry," I told him. "See you later." I snapped off the set and turned back to Westley Marks.

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