Collector's Item Part 4

"Stop it, somebody!" Miss Ans.p.a.cher snapped in her customary schoolroom manner.

The professor was pale, but he held on to his calm. "What can we do?

Even if we could get the captain back in time, there's no way we can stop it. It's too heavy to pull out manually, and the engines, of course, are inside."

As they watched in horror, the s.h.i.+p sank deeper and deeper, picking up momentum as more of it went under. With a loud, sucking sound, it vanished into the ooze. Muddy water gurgled over it and, where the s.h.i.+p had been, there was now a small lake.

"This could be the beginning of a legend," Miss Ans.p.a.cher 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 d.a.m.n rock," the captain grumbled, squeezing water out of his s.h.i.+rt-tails, "we'd have been all right. Probably the storm wouldn't have done a thing to the s.h.i.+p 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 Ans.p.a.cher 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, light-conditioned, weather-conditioned city. It is only when I rough it on field trips like this to trackless parts of the--globe that I am forced to experience weather. Even then, I have never before been caught in a situation like this."

_In fact, I was never before caught or I wouldn't be in this situation at all._

"Oh, Jrann-Pttt," sighed Miss Ans.p.a.cher, "I knew you couldn't be just an ordinary native!"

"How did you get into this situation then?" Professor Bernardi asked. He had an unfortunate talent for going directly to the point.

"The third member of our expedition died," Jrann-Pttt explained. "He was our dirigational expert. Our guide."

"How did he happen to--"

"Are we just going to stand here chatting," Miss Ans.p.a.cher demanded, "or are we going to do something about this?"

"What can we do?" Mrs. Bernardi asked weakly. "We might just as well lie down and--"

"Never say die, Louisa," Miss Ans.p.a.cher admonished.

"I suggest we go to my camp to see what shape it's in," Jrann-Pttt said, furiously putting together Plan C. "Some of the supplies there might prove useful."

Captain Greenfield looked questioningly at Bernardi. The professor shrugged. "Might as well."

"All right," the captain growled. "Let's pick up whatever we can save."

Since there wasn't much that could be rescued, the little safari was soon on its way. Jrann-Pttt led, carrying Algol in his arms. Behind came Mortland, bearing a camp stool and the kettle into which he had tucked a tin of biscuits and into which the mosquito-bat had tucked itself, its orange eyes glaring out angrily from beneath the lid. Next came Mrs.

Bernardi with her knitting, her camp stool and her sorrow.

Dfar-Lll followed with two stools and the plastic tea set. Close behind was Miss Ans.p.a.cher, with the sugar bowl, the earthenware teapot and an immense bound volume of the _Proceedings of the Physical Society of Ameranglis_ for 1993. Professor Bernardi bore a briefcase full of notes and the table. The rain had damaged the latter's mechanism, so that its legs kept unfolding from time to time, to the great inconvenience of Captain Greenfield, who brought up the rear with the blasting equipment.

Behind them and sometimes alongside them came something--or someone--else.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"Surely your camp must have been closer to ours than this," Miss Ans.p.a.cher finally remarked after they had been slogging through mud and water and pus.h.i.+ng aside reluctant vegetation for over an Earth hour.

"I am very much afraid," Jrann-Pttt admitted, "that our camp has been lost--that is to say, inundated."

"What are we going to do now?" the captain asked of the company at large.

Professor Bernardi shrugged. "Our only course would seem to be making for one of the cities and throwing ourselves upon the na--Jrann-Pttt's people's hospitality. If Professor Jrann-Pttt has even the vaguest idea of the direction in which his home lies, we might as well head that way." _I wonder whether the natives could help us raise the s.h.i.+p._

"I'm sure my people will be more than happy to welcome you," Jrann-Pttt said smoothly, "and to make you comfortable until your people send another s.h.i.+p to fetch you."

The terrestrials looked at one another. Dfar-Lll looked at Jrann-Pttt.

Professor Bernardi coughed. "That was the only s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p we had," he admitted. "The first experimental model, you know." _We don't expect to stay on this awful planet forever. After all, as Louisa says, the government will have to forgive us. Public opinion and all that._

"Oh," the saurian said. "Then we shall have the pleasure of your company until they build another?"

There was silence. "We have the only plans," the professor said, gripping his briefcase more tightly. "I am the inventor of the s.h.i.+p, so naturally I would have them." _If we brought back some specimens of Venusian life--of intelligent Venusian life--to prove we'd been here...._

"Matter of fact, old fellow," Mortland said, "we took all the plans with us so they couldn't build another s.h.i.+p and follow--"

"Mortland!" the professor exclaimed.

"But they're telepaths," Miss Ans.p.a.cher said. "They must know already."

Everyone turned to look at the saurians.

"I have ... certain information," Jrann-Pttt admitted, "but I cannot understand it. You are in trouble with your rulers because they would not give you the funds, claiming s.p.a.ce travel was impossible?"

"That's right," Bernardi said. _Not really specimens, you understand.

Guests._

"And you went ahead and appropriated the funds and materials from your government, since you were in a trusted position where you could do so?"

Bernardi nodded.