“Whew—­out in the open with you—!” Ali Kamil apprentice Engineer, screwed his too regular features into an expression of extreme distaste and waved Dane by him in the corridor.

For the sake of his shipmates’ olfactory nerves, Dane hurried on to the port which gave on the ramp now tying the Queen to Sargol’s crust.  But there he lingered, waiting for Van Rycke, the Cargo-master of the spacer and his immediate superior.  It was early morning and now that he was out of the confinement of the ship the fresh morning winds cut about him, rippling through the blue-green grass forest beyond, to take much of his momentary irritation with them.

There were no mountains in this section of Sargol—­the highest elevations being rounded hills tightly clothed with the same ten-foot grass which covered the plains.  From the Queen’s observation ports, one could watch the constant ripple of the grass so that the planet appeared to be largely clothed in a shimmering, flowing carpet.  To the west were the seas—­stretches of shallow water so cut up by strings of islands that they more resembled a series of salty lakes.  And it was what was to be found in those seas which had lured the Solar Queen to Sargol.

Though, by rights, the discovery was that of another Trader—­Traxt Cam—­who had bid for trading rights to Sargol, hoping to make a comfortable fortune—­or at least expenses with a slight profit—­in the perfume trade, exporting from the scented planet some of its most fragrant products.  But once on Sargol he had discovered the Koros stones—­gems of a new type—­a handful of which offered across the board in one of the inner planet trading marts had nearly caused a riot among bidding gem merchants.  And Cam had been well on the way to becoming one of the princes of Trade when he had been drawn into the vicious net of the Limbian pirates and finished off.

Because they, too, had stumbled into the trap which was Limbo, and had had a very definite part in breaking up that devilish installation, the crew of the Solar Queen had claimed as their reward the trading rights of Traxt Cam in default of legal heirs.  And so here they were on Sargol with the notes left by Cam as their guide, and as much lore concerning the Salariki as was known crammed into their minds.

Dane sat down on the end of the ramp, his feet on Sargolian soil, thin, red soil with glittering bits of gold flake in it.  He did not doubt that he was under observation from hidden eyes, but he tried to show no sign that he guessed it.  The adult Salariki maintained at all times an attitude of aloof and complete indifference toward the Traders, but the juvenile population were as curious as their elders were contemptuous.  Perhaps there was a method of approach in that.  Dane considered the idea.