s. Bernardi's voice held reproach.

"Until we knew what kind of beings you were, we couldn't let you know
how 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 would
consent to help us get our ship back from these criminals. Then we could
fly to my planet--which is the fifth of the star you know as Alpha
Centauri--where, I assure you, you would be hospitably received."

_We aren't really going back home, Jrann-Pttt, are we? I'd sooner stay
here in the swamp than go back to that jail._

_Have confidence in me, r-Lll. As soon as we have disposed of the
commandant and his officers, I can put our ship out of commission. The
terrestrials won't be able to tell what's wrong. They know nothing about
space travel. The fact that they got their crude vessel to operate was
probably sheer luck._

But the younger was not to be diverted. _Will we kill them after we've
disposed of our officers? I should hate to._

_Certainly not. We shall need servants and I don't trust the prisoners
in the ship--all criminals of the lowest type!_ Aloud, he said to the
bewildered terrestrials, "If you don't want to help us, I shall
understand. 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 one
tried to stop him. Jrann-Pttt sensed that somehow he had lost a good
deal of his grip on the terrestrials. Finesse, he thought angrily, was
wasted on these barbaric life-forms.

Bernardi sighed. "I suppose we'll have to help you." _No reason why his
ship shouldn't stop off at Earth before it goes to Alpha Centauri. No
reason 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 because
she 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 it
hasn't been made quite clear to me whether or not I'm included in the
invitation to this Alpha Centauri place, and I wouldn't want to keep
going only on the off-chance that you might ask me. I really think you
should, because you led me astray with your fair promises of glittering
cities."

"The citi