"Might as well collect whatever gear we have left and get it to higher ground," Miss Anspacher said efficiently. "Two feet of water won't do anything any good—even those camp stools."
"It's my belief you wanted this to happen," Greenfield accused Jrann-Pttt. "You wanted to get rid of us."
"My dear fellow," Jrann-Pttt replied loftily, "the information I gave you was, to the best of my knowledge, accurate. However, I happen to be a professor of zoology and not a meteorologist. Apparently you people live out in the open like primitives," he continued, ignoring Dfar-Lll's admiring interjection, "and are accustomed to the vicissitudes of weather. I am a civilized creature; I live—" or used to live—"in an air-conditioned, light-conditioned, weather-conditioned city. It is only when I rough it on field trips like this to trackless parts of the—globe that I am forced to experience weather. Even then, I have never before been caught in a situation like this."
In fact, I was never before caught or I wouldn't be in this situation at all.
"Oh, Jrann-Pttt," sighed Miss Anspacher, "I knew you couldn't be just an ordinary native!"
"How did you get into this situation then?" Professor Bernardi asked. He had an unfortunate talent for going directly to the point.
"The third member of our expedition died," Jrann-Pttt explained. "He was our dirigational expert. Our guide."
"How did he happen to—"
"Are we just going to stand here chatting," Miss Anspacher demanded, "or are we going to do something about this?"
"What can we do?" Mrs. Bernardi asked weakly. "We might just as well lie down and—"