d. "How to throw off the
yoke of the oppressor who had come among us? How to ease the bite of
her lash on our quivering backs? How to restore our tiny, inoffensive
still whose musical, tinkling drip we loved so well? The suggestions
put before the committee that night were many and varied and
wonderful."

Lee tried to light a cigarette and nearly broiled the end of his nose
with the flame.

"Lopez, head of our camera team, wanted to pickle her in a barrel of
brandy and send her back to Venus Relay Station aboard the next
courier rocket. Sounded like a good idea, too, until Olsen, one of the
biologists, objected on the grounds that those bums on Venus never did
anything for us, so why should they get all that good brandy? The
motion was tabled as impractical when we saw the pit into which Lopez
and his wild ideas had nearly led us. A whole barrel of brandy! The
man must have been desperate to call for such extreme measures."

* * * * *

He shook his head. "Akermann, the chemist of the bunch, proposed
smoking her as one would a ham and then hanging her over the main gate
of the compound to keep away the beasties and things that go boomp in
the night. Now _that_ was what I thought a fine idea. Functional, you
might say. Might as well get some good out of her. But then Joe
smothered it with his observation that, after one look at that face of
hers, the good beasties would stay out of the compound, too.

"The dark and devious ways of the plotter were difficult for us to
assume, scientists and technicians that we were, and the trips to the
keg became more frequent as we sought the aid of the nameless gods who
had sent it to us." He paused again as Grandpa's brandy took another
beating. "The web of our own fuzzy thinking was entangling us more and
more when I was privileged to be present during the only true flash
of genius I've ever witnessed."

The wonder, the awe was still in his voice. "Akermann's assistant, the
Kid, was singled out for the touch and I must say for him that he held
up very nicely under the blow, but one could see that his sudden
responsibility set heavy on his narrow bony shoulders. The Kid drew
additional inspiration from the glass in his hand, then leaped to his
feet and as promptly sat down again. He gave the decking at his feet a
baleful glare and tried again, first choosing his footing carefully as
a man should when the floor shows that alarming tendency to tilt."