"Shut up or I'll wring your neck!" the captain snarled. The mosquito-bat obeyed sullenly, apparently recognizing the threat in his tone. But the concept of "monster" hung heavily in the air between the terrestrials and the lizard-man. _They should not feel so bad about it_, he thought, _for they are the monsters themselves. But that would never occur to them and I can hardly reassure them by saying...._ "Don't worry," Professor Bernardi said smoothly. "To him, it's we who are the monsters." A sudden gust of wind nearly whipped the tablecloth out of Jrann-Pttt's hands. He fought with it for a moment, glad of something tangible to contend with. "About the shelters," he said. "They might not stand up against a storm." "So this is monsoon country," Bernardi observed thoughtfully. "Do you know when the storms usually come, Jrann-Pttt?" The other shook his head. "Peculiar. There usually is a season for that sort of thing." "I ... come from another part of the planet." "Storms here are bad, eh?" the captain commented, swinging himself down easily. "Frankly, that worries me. Ship's resting on mud as far as I can see, and if there's one thing I do know something about, it's mud. If it got any wetter, the ship might sink." "Maybe we should leave," Mrs. Bernardi suggested. "Go to another part of the planet where it's drier, or--" she tried not to show the sudden surge of hope--"leave for home and come back after the rainy season." There was a sudden silence, and Jrann-Pttt found himself able to pick up the answers to some of his questions from the alien minds. His worst fears were confirmed. Plan A was out. But something could still be done with these creatures. "Doesn't she know?" the captain demanded accusingly. "You brought her here without telling her?" Bernardi spread his hands wide in a futile gesture. "She should know; I've told her repeatedly. She just doesn't understand ... or doesn't want to." "I know they'll forgive us," Mrs. Bernardi said stubbornly. "We--you--haven't done anything really wrong, so how could they do anything terrible to us? After all, didn't they refuse you the funds because they said you couldn't--" "Shhh, Louisa," her husband commanded. Jrann-Pttt smiled to himself. --"do it," she went on. "And you did. So they were wrong and they'll have to forgive us." "Tcha!" Miss Anspacher said. "Since when was there any fairness in justice?" "On the other hand," Mrs. Bernardi continued, "we have no idea of how dangerous the storms here could be." "Very dangerous," Jrann-Pttt said. "For you, perhaps," the captain retorted. "Maybe not for us." "Now that's silly," Miss Anspacher said. "You can see that Jrann-Pttt is much more--" she blushed--"sturdily built than we are." "I don't mean that we could face it without protection," the captain replied angrily. "Naturally I mean that our superior technology could cope with the effects of any storm."