"Surely your camp must have been closer to ours than this," Miss Anspacher finally remarked after they had been slogging through mud and water and pushing aside reluctant vegetation for over an Earth hour.
"I am very much afraid," Jrann-Pttt admitted, "that our camp has been lost—that is to say, inundated."
"What are we going to do now?" the captain asked of the company at large.
Professor Bernardi shrugged. "Our only course would seem to be making for one of the cities and throwing ourselves upon the na—Jrann-Pttt's people's hospitality. If Professor Jrann-Pttt has even the vaguest idea of the direction in which his home lies, we might as well head that way." I wonder whether the natives could help us raise the ship.
"I'm sure my people will be more than happy to welcome you," Jrann-Pttt said smoothly, "and to make you comfortable until your people send another ship to fetch you."
The terrestrials looked at one another. Dfar-Lll looked at Jrann-Pttt.
Professor Bernardi coughed. "That was the only spaceship we had," he admitted. "The first experimental model, you know." We don't expect to stay on this awful planet forever. After all, as Louisa says, the government will have to forgive us. Public opinion and all that.
"Oh," the saurian said. "Then we shall have the pleasure of your company until they build another?"
There was silence. "We have the only plans," the professor said, gripping his briefcase more tightly. "I am the inventor of the ship, so naturally I would have them." If we brought back some specimens of Venusian life—of intelligent Venusian life—to prove we'd been here....