Cap Hanson had been right. The action of cosmic rays had done weird things to those original germ cells.[4] _Rosa rugosa_ had--figuratively and literally--gone crazy with the heat waves. Here triple-headed roses with spiny petals reared themselves awkwardly out of thick spongy, palmate foliage ... there a pinkish, cactus-like rose-thing clung tenaciously to a table leg ... elsewhere gossamer-fine, lavender petals, propelled by stirring gusts of air, drifted lazily across the room toward us, dangling epiphytic roots. [Footnote 4: Science has already discovered that the bombardment of cosmic rays is at least partially responsible for the creation of "freaks," "sports," or "mutants," in both the animal and vegetable world. Life on atmosphere-blanketed planets is not subject to this bombardment, because of the protective Heaviside energy layer ... but space-craft must be carefully shielded from such radiation.--ED.] It was a startling exhibition of Mama Nature gone nuts! Only in two respects did these fantastic creations resemble the roses from which they were mutant. Each variation had thorns--as we discovered painfully when we tried to walk amongst them--and all had some shade or tint or hue of the fundamental red rose whence they had sprung. Cap Hanson groaned, "Oh, my golly, what a mess! Of all the--Hey, let me out of here! Whatever's goin' on, it's gettin' _us_, too! Your faces!" Biggs cracked indigo lips in what was supposed to be a placating grin but looked more like a hungry pitcher-plant licking its chops. He said, "The color means nothing, Captain. It's just a matter of light refraction." "Which doesn't alter the fact," I reminded him, "that the experiment's a flop, Lanse, old boy. I--I guess we might as well call it quits. Clean this mess up and throw it away. We can't show this stuff to the Iapetus board. They'd toss us out on our necks." Biggs nodded dolefully. "I guess you're right, Sparks. This is a bitter disappointment. I did _so_ want to surprise her." "Her?" grunted Hanson. "The Board's made up of hims." "I mean," wailed Biggs plaintively, "Diane. Now she won't get her anniversary corsage...." * * * * * So that was that. The Skipper went back to the bridge to give our second in command, Lieutenant Dick Todd, the necessary trajectory instructions, and I stuck around, sweating and swearing, to help Biggs clean up the aboriginal morass he had created with his experiment. It was tough going, too. Like I said before, those roses had thorns. By the time we got done, our fingers looked like First Prize in a needlework exhibit. It was just as we were finishing and Biggs was draining the final rugose drops of fluid from his tank that he loosed a little yelp of excitement. "Sparks!" "Now what?" I asked. "If it's another experiment--"