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. By now, the gas giant was on the rise again; Xris could see things swimming through the swamp. From Ito's muffled curse, he could see them, too. The two returned to their spaceplane.
Once inside, they peeled off their wet clothes. Ito wrinkled his nose, held his mud-covered coverails at arm's length. "Man, that swamp stinks! And to think we've got to go back tonight. I swear, Xris, I saw a snake three meters long and as thick around as your leg. All that crap about it being more scared of me than me of it ... hah! The damn thing floated right in front of me, stared at me with its little snaky eyes."
"It didn't bite you, did it?" Xris asked, grinning, scraping muck off his face.
"No," Ito retorted, "but probably because it had just chowed down on a warthog or whatever kind of pork they grow around here. I'll be glad to get this job over. And if you think I'm bad, wait till Mr. Finicky white-lab-coat Rowan sets foot in that slimy soup."
"Maybe slogging around in muck'll take his mind off that female. I'll see if I can't find a nice fat cephalopod to drop down his back."
They changed into denims, spread out their equipment to dry in the hot sun. Xris routed the spaceplane's sensors through his computer, set the sensors to pick up any movement in the vicinity. The two went to sleep.
A light on the portable comm unit started to flash, accompanied by a beeping sound
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