t."

Lee ran his tongue over his lips, as though the taste were still in
his mouth. "There were countless little incidents such as that," he
said, "none of them important, but they all added up to a constant
irritation and resentment among the men. Maybe it was easygoing Pop
Jensen who spoiled us. I don't know."

* * * * *

Lee thought for a moment or two. "Then there was the time a water-pup
nuzzled Prunella while she was taking a lone swim in the river that
ran near the station. She spent all morning on a sandbar in the middle
of the river before the school of pups tired of their play and left
long enough for her to consider it safe enough to swim back to the
river bank."

He grinned to himself. "Sam, those pups are as harmless and friendly
and playful as any pups of Earth, but Prunella didn't know that and
none of us could convince her of it. She said that the pups might be
dangerous, under some unknown circumstances which she didn't define,
then quoted us a passage from the _Handbook_ which prohibited
fraternization with any native life-forms until friendly relations
were established. She evidently didn't consider being nuzzled a
friendly act. Ergo, no more swimming and that was an order."

He made another trip to the brandy bottle, then sank back into the
deep chair again. "But the most exasperating thing Prunella pulled on
us was the inspections every morning before we left on our daily field
trips. We had all been on Xenon long enough to know what equipment we
needed to carry, right down to the last specimen box, but what we
carried and what the _Survival Handbook_ said to carry were two
different things. That is, they were two different things before
Prunella began her inspections. We had found long before that all of
the gear prescribed by the _Handbook_ was heavy, most of it was
useless, none of it necessary on Xenon. It might be of some use on
some other planet, but we didn't need it there. So, as a consequence,
we didn't lug much of that junk around over the landscape with us."

"None of it?" I said.

"Well, almost none. But after Little Miss Efficiency began making her
morning spot checks, we left the compound each day looking like a
picture of what the well-dressed man on a strange planet will wear. We
carried everything in the book and a few more that Pruny thought up
all by her little self. In addition to all the survival, signaling and
first-aid equipment that dan