.

"And besides," Miss Anspacher added, "I lost the teapot in that
pot-hole."

"But you managed to save the _Proceedings of the Physical Society_,"
Mortland snarled. "Serve you right if I eat it. And I warn you, if
hard-pressed, I shall."

"How will we cook our food, though?" Mrs. Bernardi demanded
apprehensively. "It's a lucky thing, Mr. Pitt, that we have you with us
to tell us which of the berries and things are edible, so at least we
shan't starve."

The visible portion of Jrann-Pttt's well-knit form turned deeper green.
"But I regret to say I don't know, Mrs. Bernardi. Those 'native' foods I
served you were all synthetics from our personal stores. I never tasted
natural foods before I met you."

"And if the trees don't like our taking their branches," Miss Anspacher
put in, "I don't suppose the bushes would like our taking their berries.
Louisa, don't do that!"

But Mrs. Bernardi, with her usual disregard for orders, had fainted into
the mud. Pulling her out and reviving her caused so much confusion, it
wasn't until then that they discovered Algol had disappeared.

* * * * *

The party had been trudging through mud and water and struggling with
pale, malevolent vines and bushes and low-hanging branches for close to
six Earth hours. All of them were tired and hungry, now that their
meager supply of biscuits and chocolate was gone.

"Remember, Carl," Mrs. Bernardi told her husband, "I forgive you. And I
know I'm being foolishly sentimental, but if you could manage to take my
body back to Earth--"

"Don't be so pessimistic." Professor Bernardi absent-mindedly leaned
against a tree, then recoiled as he remembered it might resent being
treated like an inanimate object. "In any case, we'll most likely all
die at the same time."

"I never did want to go to Venus, really," Mrs. Bernardi sniffled. "I
only came, like Algol did, because I didn't have any choice. If you left
me behind, I'd have had to bear the brunt of.... Where is Algol?" She
stared at Jrann-Pttt. "You were carrying him. What have you done with
him?"

The lizard-man looked at her in consternation. "He jumped out of my arms
when you fainted and I turned back to help. I was certain one of the
others had him."

"He's dead!" she wailed. "You let him fall into the water and drown--an
innocent kitty that never hurt anybody, except in fun."

"Come, come, Louisa." Her husband took her arm. "He was only a cat. I'm
sur