over it and, where the ship
had been, there was now a small lake.

"This could be the beginning of a legend," Miss Anspacher murmured. "Or
the end."

There was another vibrant detonation. "Someone ought to go tell the
captain there's no use blasting any more," Bernardi said wearily. "We
have nothing to put on the rock when he smooths it off." He began to
laugh. "I suppose you could call this poetic justice." And he went on
laughing, losing a bit of his former self-control.

_There goes Plan B_, Jrann-Pttt thought.

A star of intensely bright green lightning split the clouds and widened
to cover the visible expanse of sky. There was a planet-shaking clap of
thunder that made Greenfield's puny efforts sound like the snapping of
twigs in comparison and it began to rain hard and fast.

* * * * *

"If only I hadn't gone and blasted that damn rock," the captain
grumbled, squeezing water out of his shirt-tails, "we'd have been all
right. Probably the storm wouldn't have done a thing to the ship except
get it wet. If you can even call it a storm."

"I can and I do," Jrann-Pttt replied, haughtily squeegeeing his wet
scales. "All I said was that a storm might be coming up and it might be
dangerous. How was I to know it would last only half an hour?"

"Even the camp stools pulled through," Greenfield pointed out, "and you
said shelters wouldn't stand up."

"I only said they might not. Can't you understand your own language?"

The fissure in the clouds had not quite closed yet and through it the
enormous, blazing disk of the sun glared at them, twice as large as it
appeared from Earth. It was a moot point as to whether they'd be dried
out or steamed alive first.

"Might as well collect whatever gear we have left and get it to higher
ground," Miss Anspacher said efficiently. "Two feet of water won't do
anything any good--even those camp stools."

"It's my belief you wanted this to happen," Greenfield accused
Jrann-Pttt. "You wanted to get rid of us."

"My dear fellow," Jrann-Pttt replied loftily, "the information I gave
you was, to the best of my knowledge, accurate. However, I happen to be
a professor of zoology and not a meteorologist. Apparently you people
live out in the open like primitives," he continued, ignoring Dfar-Lll's
admiring interjection, "and are accustomed to the vicissitudes of
weather. I am a civilized creature; I live--" _or used to live_--"in an
air-conditioned, lig