"Okay, Slops," he snarled. "We give up. Where'd you hide it?" Slops looked puzzled. "Hide what? I didn't hide nothin'. What is this, a game?" "Sure," I chinned in. "It's called Sniff-the-Atmosphere. You play it by pressing your thumb and forefinger to your nostrils. Then you try to guess what died." "Quiet, Sparks!" roared the skipper. Then, to the cook, "Well, Slops?" Slops shrugged. "I ain't done nothin'," he protested. "I ain't hid nothin', and I ain't smelled nothin'. Now I got a meal on the fire. Go 'way and leave me alone." The skipper looked at me, and I stared back at him. Both of us realized the same thing at the same time. Slops wasn't lying. The smell _wasn't_ as bad here as it had been updeck. Hanson scratched his head. He said, suspiciously, "Sparks, are you sure you ain't been mixin' chemicals?" "I'll swear it," I told him, "on a pile of logbooks. That smell came from--Hey! What else beside the galley lies beneath my room and the control turret?" "I'm a cook," said Slops, still stirring the tapioca, "not a blueprint. Don't ask me." "Shut up!" snapped Captain Hanson. "He ain't askin' you. Let's see, Sparks. There's the storage closet ... the reservoir ... the refrigeration tanks, and the--" His eyes widened suddenly; fearfully. "Sparks!" he husked. "Yes?" "The vegetable hold!" * * * * * Man, that was it! The minute he said it, I knew. The vegetable hold--and Biggs in charge! We hightailed it for the nearest ramp. The minute we turned down the corridor the smell got worse. Hanson blasted down the aisle like a rogue asteroid, with me trailing along behind. We hit the door; rammed it open-- Biggs was in there. The darned fool was standing in there dressed in a bulger, calmly spraying the bins of _mekel_-root and _clab_ with a hose! He turned as we entered and his eyes lighted behind the quartzite. His audiophone clacked pleasantly. "Hello!" he said. "Is there anything wrong?" "Anything wrong!" bellowed Captain Hanson. "He asks if there's anything wrong! That--that suit! And that hose--" The skipper's face was turning purple. "And this _heat_!" "I turned off the refrigerating unit," clacked Biggs pleasantly. "You see, I had a theory that since the climate of Venus is warm and moist, it would be better for the cargo if I attempted to simulate its normal conditions of growth. So I--" "And the suit?" roared Hanson. "Why the bulger?" Biggs moved his hands deprecatingly. "Why, possible infection, you know. I didn't want to expose the vegetables to any organisms--" "Infect ... moisture ... heat...." Captain Hanson gave up. He buried his face in his hands. "Tell him, Sparks! Tell him what he's doing!"