"Looks like a fish dinner," he sighed. "Of course there are clams, of the mud-kelp variety, and Uranusian lobsters--they're really delicious at this time of the year. Then we've got a very good variety of that piscatorial wonder known here as a whirl-ray, whose steaks are rather tasty. But in the last analysis, just fish." "I'll take the same," groaned Lana Hilton, rolling her eyes toward the ceiling with an attitude of unwilling acquiescence. "Between going nuts and getting the d. t.'s I'll take the nuts. Maybe I can forget a few trifles of life by just being in your company. At least it'll keep me from thinking over what a swell opportunity I had for being a good little girl. By the way, Lonny, do you think there's a Hereafter, here on Uranus?" "Why not?" asked Lonny with a grimace as he laid thick white slices of whirl-ray in the skillet and turned on an electric grid. "I suppose they'd picture there as some sort of a glorified place where mud just couldn't exist." "Yeh, probably with green fields, waterfalls, and mountains," returned Lana, leaning on her fist with a reminiscent sigh, "Gosh, sometimes I wonder why I ever left those good things, and then again--what's the diff?" * * * * * The fried steaks sent a not unpleasant aroma drifting through the control room. Lonny sat a tiny side plate on the table, and pulled up a high slender chair like a baby's high-chair, to which Baron Munchy soared. He tucked a napkin under his chin and sat waiting, with tiny knife and fork raised high. The sight was so amusing that somehow Lana found time to laugh. "You really coddle the little rascal, don't you?" she asked, "and for some reason I never really considered these manlike dragon-flies with having any intelligence whatever." "Oh, they're smart in a way," agreed Lonny between bites. "You know I've always had a theory that his race of beings came from one of the moons of Uranus. There are four of them, you know. I suspect he came from Umbriel." "Well, little man," said Lana. "Maybe you're an Umbriellian. But where is your umbrella?" "Or an Arielite," suggested Lonny. "Without a lantern." "Or a Titanian, or an Oberonian," said Lana. "Slap 'em down," sighed Baron Munchy in a flattered manner. "Give both barrels." "Say, let up with that kind of chatter, won't you?" groaned Link Raeburn, after trying again and again to get the mud-ship from beneath the deep ledge. "I'm going batty, I tell you. Completely batty!" "Probably it's the pressure," commented Lonny. "High blood pressure." With the table cleared, Lana's good spirits had taken another slump. She went gloomily with Raeburn to check the air, food, and water supplies of the strange craft. When they returned Lonny Higgens was curled up on a couch, snoring lustily.