"Hey, Ed! Ed!" called Archie. "It just ate our radio!" Ed hurried up from the back of the ship. "You ass," he said. "Why did you let him have it? I should bash your teeth in." He brandished a hammer threateningly. "Let's not lose our tempers, Ed," smiled Archie anxiously. "Okay. Forget it. We'll never get out of here by fighting." He stepped resolutely into the cabin and returned with an ugly looking steel tube. "I'm going to roast Fido right off that radio." "Hey, wait a minute, Ed!" Archie held his comrade's arm. "--After all, I gave him the radio. Maybe he thought I'm trying to make friends." "You blockhead! I ought to turn Betsy here on you. What were you up to--feeling sorry for monstrous there? Okay ... you get the radio back your way. Spend all month doing it! Just sit looking into handsome's limpid pools and maybe she'll kiss you and give you back your radio. Damn 'Chameleon Tiger!'" He brandished his hammer aloft and returned to the nether regions. * * * * * Several minutes later the purple sphere sidled backward and the radio returned to view. It emitted curious noises. The purple sphere looked up at Archie sadly. "You fixed it!" cried the amazed Simms. "Ed! Ed! Come here! He fixed it! It works!" Ed returned to stare at the radio in disbelief. "Hey, that's pretty damn good. What about asking him to fix the rest of the ship?" "I'll try. Hey, Melancholy! Fix up our rocket ship, okay?" The purple sphere sidled forward until it stood directly beneath the escape hatch. Then it looked up at Archie. "It wants to get in," explained Archie. "Do we still have that old ramp I stole on Mercury?" "Right here." Together they lowered the ramp. The purple sphere sidled forward and vainly attempted to climb upward. "He's too heavy," said Simms. "We'll have to jump down and push him." "Don't like," said the cautious Bailey. "Then he's on and we're off. That's too much like suicide." "We can trust him. He fixed the radio, didn't he?" "All right, wise guy. It's your funeral, too." They hopped down and, straining mightily, pushed the purple sphere to the top of the ramp. "Will he go through the hatch?" cried Ed. "I can't see around him." "Hope so," panted Archie, "or he's going to roll back on top of us. There he goes. We made it!" The purple sphere vanished into the ship. "What do we do now?" cried the excitable Bailey. "He may curl up and hibernate in there, for all you know. If he's not out in an hour, I'm going to shoot him!" The odor of hot metal drifted out the emergency hatch. "He's schmooling around in there," said Ed. "Leave him alone, Ed. Let's look around." Ed grumbled, but followed the retreating form of Archie Simms. They had strayed over a mile from the ship when the sun blasted out the end of another day. "We'd better head back," said the cautious Bailey, turning around. "Okay, but not that way. The ship's over there." "Nuts, Arch; the ship's that way."