Creature in the Crater : 07

"It's a survey tool," Klane lied. "I use it to find minerals. I am a prospector. It was passed down to me by my father who was also a miner and to him by his father and where he got it from I do not know.
"If you will allow me to take it, I will show you how it works."
Once he had hold of his weapon again, Klane had no intention of relinquishing it! For a moment the creature seemed as if it would agree. Then a thin membrane closed over its eyes and when they opened again it gave its prisoner a look of sly intelligence.
"Perhaps I should do some work on it myself first."
Klane shrugged. "It is a delicate tool. If you do not know what you are doing you will break it."
"Then you must tell me how to use it".
Of course Klane had no intention of doing that.
"It would be so much simpler to demonstrate myself. My fingers are better suited to using the controls."
"But what if it turned out to be some kind of powerful weapon? Then where would I be?", the cowardly but cunning creature mused with dangerous insight.
"How likely is that!" Klane scoffed. "You seem to know a lot about our world. How would a simple Rider like me get hold of a mysterious weapon that could hurt someone with the technologies you command?"
"True. All very true. Yet you aren't so simple as you appear are you? You've heard of the Galactic Compact and that's very strange. I didn't expect to meet anyone on this world who had heard of them."
Now Klane wished he hadn't tried to be so clever at the start of the conversation for something in his manner and something about the klane had made the creature suspicious.
"I think I shall leave the investigation of this 's... survey' tool for another day. I have a MUCH more interesting idea for a new experiment which we will do first..."