of
the planet where it's drier, or--" she tried not to show the sudden
surge of hope--"leave for home and come back after the rainy season."

There was a sudden silence, and Jrann-Pttt found himself able to pick up
the answers to some of his questions from the alien minds. His worst
fears were confirmed. Plan A was out. But something could still be done
with these creatures.

"Doesn't she know?" the captain demanded accusingly. "You brought her
here without telling her?"

Bernardi spread his hands wide in a futile gesture. "She should know;
I've told her repeatedly. She just doesn't understand ... or doesn't
want to."

"I know they'll forgive us," Mrs. Bernardi said stubbornly.
"We--you--haven't done anything really wrong, so how could they do
anything terrible to us? After all, didn't they refuse you the funds
because they said you couldn't--"

"Shhh, Louisa," her husband commanded.

Jrann-Pttt smiled to himself.

--"do it," she went on. "And you did. So they were wrong and they'll
have to forgive us."

"Tcha!" Miss Anspacher said. "Since when was there any fairness in
justice?"

"On the other hand," Mrs. Bernardi continued, "we have no idea of how
dangerous the storms here could be."

"Very dangerous," Jrann-Pttt said.

"For you, perhaps," the captain retorted. "Maybe not for us."

"Now that's silly," Miss Anspacher said. "You can see that Jrann-Pttt is
much more--" she blushed--"sturdily built than we are."

"I don't mean that we could face it without protection," the captain
replied angrily. "Naturally I mean that our superior technology could
cope with the effects of any storm."

"Well, Captain, we'll have to put that superior technology to use at
once," the professor told him. "You'd better start blasting that rock."

Laden with equipment and malevolent thoughts, the captain trudged off
into the murky jungle. The others would not even offer to help.
Confounded scientists; they certainly took his status as captain
seriously. He wished, for a disloyal moment, that he had stayed on
Earth. The quiet routine of a test pilot had prepared him for nothing
like this. Were Miss Anspacher and adventure worth it? At the moment, he
thought not. But he was on Venus and it was too late to change his mind.

Jrann-Pttt followed him into the jungle, keeping some distance behind,
for he had good reason to suspect that Greenfield would take his warm
interest in terrestrial technology for plain spying. Or, worse