ference between Alpha Centauri and Sirius
anyway? Matter of a few light-years, but otherwise a star's a star for
all that."

"To Jrann-Pttt, we wouldn't have been specimens," Mrs. Bernardi said,
belatedly recognizing the advantages of Alpha Centauri.

"No, not specimens," the vine told her easily. "I don't suppose you know
he had no intention of taking you back to his system. He wanted you to
help him kill the officers of his ship so they couldn't look for him and
the other escaped prisoner or report back to his planet. Then he was
going to put the ship out of commission and found his own colony here
with you as his slaves. I'd just as soon be a specimen as a slave.
Sooner. Better to reign in a zoo than serve in a swamp!"

"Just how do you know all this?" Miss Anspacher demanded.

"It's obvious enough," Bernardi said gloomily. "Another telepath." _How
can we compete or even cope with creatures like these? What a fool I
was to think I could outwit them._

"Telepathy just tricksomeness," the mosquito-bat put in jealously. "I
have no telepathy, yet superior to all."

"But why should Mr. Pitt want to kill his officers?" Mrs. Bernardi asked
querulously. "He's the commandant, isn't he? Or is he a professor? I
never got that straight."

"He was one of the criminals on the ship," the vine told her. "What you
might call a confidence man. This is about the only system in the Galaxy
where he isn't wanted. He did tell you the truth, though, when he said
they were sent on an expedition to collect zoological specimens.
Dangerous work," it sighed, "and so his people use criminals for it.
They were sent out in small detachments. Our friend here killed his
guard in a fight over a female prisoner, which was why--"

"But what happened to the female prisoner?" Miss Anspacher's eye caught
Dfar-Lll's. "Oh, no!" she gasped.

"Why not?" Dfar-Lll demanded. "I'm as much of a female as you are. Maybe
even more."

The captain leaned close to Miss Anspacher. "No one can be more feminine
than you are, Dolores," he whispered.

"But he--she's so young!" Mrs. Bernardi wailed.

The vine made an amused sound. "Don't you have juvenile delinquents on
Earth?"

"Oh, what does all that matter now?" Jrann-Pttt said sullenly. "We're
all going to a Sirian zoo, anyway."

"Correctly," approved the monster-bat. "Finest zoo. Clean. Commodious
cages. Reasonable visiting hours. Very nice."

Mrs. Bernardi began to cry.

"Now," the vine comforted he