good-looking in a brutal sort of way, although not nearlyas handsome or even as spiritual in appearance as Jrann-Pttt. Andsometimes I almost think he_--she blushed to herself--_shows a certainpartiality for my company._
She did not, however, let go of the saurian's arm when the captainbustled up, prepared to put a stop to this, but tactfully, if possible,for he had begun to realize that his rude ways did not endear him toher.
"Ah--we're making very good progress, aren't we, Pitt?" he interrupted,trying to insinuate himself between the two.
"Excellent."
"How soon do you think we'll be at your city at this rate?"
Jrann-Pttt shrugged. "Since I have no way of telling what our rate is orhow far we have gone, how can I tell? As a matter of fact, you might aswell learn now as later--I am not a Venusian. There is no intelligentlife native to Venus."
"Oh, really!" the vine interposed indignantly. "Saying a thing like thatright in front of me! What would you call me, then, pray tell?"
Jrann-Pttt kept his actual thoughts to himself. "A mutation," he said."Probably you are the first intelligent life-form to appear upon thisplanet. Scholarly volumes will be written about you."
"Oh?" The vine seemed to be appeased. "I accept your apology. PerhapsI'll learn to write and do the books myself, because I'm the only onewho can understand the real me."
"But how can you show us the way to your city if you're not native toVenus?" Bernardi demanded, whirling fretfully upon the saurian. "What isthis, anyway? Each time you come up with a different story!"
"See?" said the captain. "Didn't I tell you he was up to no good?"
"I should like to lead you to our base," Jrann-Pttt replied with quietdignity. "I am telling you the truth now since I feel I should have yourconsent before proceeding farther."
??????? Dfar-Lll projected.
"I hesitated before, because I wasn't sure I could trust you. Yousee, the spaceship in which we came to this planet is a prison ship,with a crew consisting of malefactors--thieves, murderers,defrauders--dispatched to the remote fastnesses of the Galaxy to fetchback zoological specimens. Our zoo, I must say, is the finest and mostinteresting in the Universe."
"Monster!" the mosquito-bat squeaked.
"Shhh," Mortland admonished. "Don't interrupt."
"I was in command of our ill-fated expedition...."
_Oh_, Dfar-Lll projected. _For a moment there, sir, you had me worried._
"When we reached Venus, I was, I must admit, careless. I gave the crew achance to mutiny and they did. Slew most of the officers. Dfar-Lll and Iwere lucky to escape with our lives."
"But you might have told us!" Mrs. Bernardi's voice held reproach.
"Until we knew what kind of beings you were, we couldn't let you knowhow helpless and unprotected we were."
The women seemed moved, but not the men.
"Leading us on a wild goose chase, were you?" the captain challenged.
Jrann-Pttt drew a deep breath. "It was my hope that all of you wouldconsent to help us get our ship back from these criminals. Then we couldfly to my planet--which is the fifth of the star you know as AlphaCentauri--where, I assure you, you would be hospitably received."
_We aren't really going back home, Jrann-Pttt, are we? I'd sooner stayhere in the swamp than go back to that jail._
_Have confidence in me, r-Lll. As soon as we have disposed of thecommandant and his officers, I can put our ship out of commission. Theterrestrials won't be able to tell what's wrong. They know nothing aboutspace travel. The fact that they got their crude vessel to operate wasprobably sheer luck._
But the younger was not to be diverted. _Will we kill them after we'vedisposed of our officers? I should hate to._
_Certainly not. We shall need servants and I don't trust the prisonersin the ship--all criminals of the lowest type!_ Aloud, he said to thebewildered terrestrials, "If you don't want to help us, I shallunderstand. No sense your interfering in another species' quarrels,particularly as we must seem like monsters to you."
"Monster!" the mosquito-bat agreed. "Monster, monster, monster!" No onetried to stop him. Jrann-Pttt sensed that somehow he had lost a gooddeal of his grip on the terrestrials. Finesse, he thought angrily, waswasted on these barbaric life-forms.
Bernardi sighed. "I suppose we'll have to help you." _No reason why hisship shouldn't stop off at Earth before it goes to Alpha Centauri. Noreason why it should even go to Alpha Centauri at all, in fact._
"If you ask me," the captain said, "he's one of the criminals himself."
"But nobody asked you," Miss Anspacher retorted, the more acidly becauseshe had been wondering the same thing. "Shall we resume our journey?"
"Hold on," the vine said. "I don't want to intrude or anything, but ithasn't been made quite clear to me whether or not I'm included in theinvitation to this Alpha Centauri place, and I wouldn't want to keepgoing only on the off-chance that you might ask me. I really think youshould, because you led me astray with your fair promises of glitteringcities."
"The cities of our planet do not glitter," Jrann-Pttt replied, wishingit would wither instantly, "but certainly you are invited. Glad to haveyou."
"Oh, that's awfully decent of you," the vine said emotionally. "I shan'tforget it, I promise you."
* * * * *
They plodded onward, the vine chattering so incessantly that a faintgurgling which accompanied them went unnoticed. The gurgling grew louderand louder as they pushed on. Finally, "I keep hearing water," Mortlandremarked. "We must be approaching a river of some kind."
A few minutes later, bursting through a screen of underbrush, they foundthemselves confronted by a river whose bubbling violet-blue watersextended for at least four kilometers from shadowy bank to bank, withthe ridge tapering to a point almost in its exact center.
Apparently, while they had been trekking along the elevation, thesurrounding terrain, concealed from them by the dense and evil-mindedvegetation, had imperceptibly taken off, leaving the ridge to become apeninsula that jutted out into the river. They seemed to be stranded.All they could do was retrace their steps and, since they had no ideahow far back the split became part of the mainland again, the returnjourney might last almost as long as it had taken them to get there.
"I know we're heading in the right direction," Jrann-Pttt defendedhimself. "I wasn't aware of the river because we must have come by anoverland route." Although he was telling the truth, at least insofar ashe knew it himself, no one, not even Dfar-Lll, believed him.
"But let's rest a bit before we turn back," Mortland proposed, floppingto the ground. "I'm utterly used up."
"Maybe we don't need to go back," the vine said. "Not all the way,anyhow." Everyone stared. It waved its leaves brightly at them. "Inotice the captain thoughtfully brought along lots of rope and therewere scads of fallen logs just a bit back. Couldn't you just lash thelogs together with the rope and make a--a thing on which we could floatthe rest of the way? On the water, you know."
The others continued to look at it open-mouthed.
"Just a little idea I had," it said modestly. "May not amount to much,but then you can't tell until you've tried, can you?"
"It--he--means a raft, I think," Mrs. Bernardi said.
Jrann-Pttt probed the raft concept in her mind, for he found thevegetable's mental processes curiously obscure. "What an excellentidea!" he exclaimed.
"It does not seem infeasible," Professor Bernardi admitted tightly. Bynow, he was suspicious of everyone and everything. _If I had neverbroached the idea of space travel to those peasants_, he thought, _Iwould be on Earth in the dubious comfort of my own home. That's whatcomes of trying to help humanity._
* * * * *
"Well," observed the captain as the heavy raft hit the water with atremendous splash, "she seems to be riverworthy." He rubbed his hands inanticipation, much of his surliness gone, now that he was about to dealwith something he understood. "Since she is, in a manner of speaking, aship, I
suppose I assume command again?" He waited for objections,glancing involuntarily in Jrann-Pttt's direction. There were none."Right," he said, repressing any outward symptoms of relief.
He efficiently deployed the personnel to the positions on the raft wherehe felt they might be least useless, the gear being piled in the middleand surmounted by Algol, who naturally assumed possession of the softestand safest place by the divine right of cats.
_The captain does have a commanding