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our luck is runnin low."
    "And," said Ray. "how!"
     
    IV
     
    He used the last sputter of ions to set down in a valley which appeared to be as wild and remote as one could hope for. However, when he got a look through a viewport, he wondered if he hadn't overdone it.
    Around the boat was a stretch of seamed and pitied stone, sloping up on every side toward fang-cragged hills. The glow of Jupiter shimmered, weirdly colored, off a distant glacier and a closer pool of liquid methane. The latter had begun boiling; its vapors obscured the tiny sun and streamed ragged across a stand of gaunt, glassy plants. Quite a wind must be blowing out there, though too tenuous for him to hear through the hull. At this time of day, when the hemisphere had warmed, the air—which still didn't amount to much more than a contaminated vacuum— consisted mostly of carbon dioxide, with some methane, ammonia. and nitrogen: not especially breathable. Even Urushkidan couldn't survive those conditions without proper gear. This craft's heating and atmosphere regeneration plants had better be in good working order.
    An animal passed across the view in kangaroo-like bounds. While small, it gave him another reason not to want to go outdoors. Ganymedean biochemistry depended on heat-absorbent materials; the thermal radiation of a spacesuited human attracted animals, and carnivores were apt to try eating their way directly to the source.
    Kay turned to his companions. "Well," he sighed, "what shall we do now?"
    Dyann's eyes lit up. "Hunt monsters?" she suggested.
    "Bah!" Urushkidan writhed his way toward the laboratory compartment, where there was a desk. "You do what you like except not to disturb me. I habe an interesting aspect of unified field teory to debelop."
    "Look," said Ray. "we've got to take action. If we sit here passive, waiting for the time when we can clean those tubes, we're too bloody likely to be found."
    "What do you imagine we can effect?"
    "Oh. I don't know. Camouflage, maybe? Damnation, I have to do something! "
    "I don't, apart from my matematics. Leabe me out of any idiotic schemes you may hatch."
    "But if they catch us. we'll be killed!"
    "I won't be," said Urushkidan smugly. "I am too baluable."
    "You're a, uh, an accessory of ours."
    "True. I did get carried away in te excitement. My hope was to aboid habing to waste my genius toiling for a mere engineering project. Tat hope has apparently been disappointed. Well, ten, te logical ting for me to do when te Jobians arribe is to go ahead and complete te dreary ting for tem, so tey will let me go home . . . wit proper payment for my serbices. I trust." The Martian paused. "As for you two. I will try to make it a condition tat your libes be spared. I am, after all, a noble person. I doubt you will eber be set free, but tink how many years you will habe, undistracted, to cultibate philosophical resignation."
    Dyann tugged at Ray's sleeve, "Come on," she urged. "Let's hunt monsters."
    "Waaah!" Goaded beyond endurance, the Earthman jumped on high—and, in Ganymedean gravity, cracked his pate on the overhead.
    "Oh, poor darlin!" Dyann exclaimed, and folded him in an embrace that would have done credit to a bear.
    "Let me go!" he raged. "Somebody here better think past the next minute!"
    "You really must work on serenity," Urushkidan advised him. "Consider tings from te aspect of eternity. You are only a lower animal. Your fate is of no importance."
    "You conceited octopus!"
    "Temper, temper." Urushkidan wagged a flexible finger at the man. "Let me remind you why you should heed me. If your reasoning powers are so weak tat you cannot demonstrate a priori tat Martians are always right—by definition—ten remember te facts. Martians are beautiful. Martians habe a benerable cibilization. Eben physically, we are superior; I can libe under Eart conditions, but I dare you to try staying alibe under Mars conditions. I double-dog dare you."
    "Martians," gritted Ray, "didn't come to Earth.