“If you don’t like the facts, you ignore them, and if you need facts, dream up some you do like,” she said.  “That’s typical rejection of reality.  Not psychotic, not even psychoneurotic.  But certainly not sane.”  She had finished her first drink and was sipping slowly at her second.  “You know, this is interesting.  Does he have some theory that would disqualify yours?”

“Not that I know of.  I got the impression that he just didn’t want the subject of rainfall on Beta discussed at all.”

“That is odd.  Has anything else peculiar been happening over on Beta lately?”

“No.  Not that I know of,” he repeated.  “Of course, that swamp-drainage project over there was what caused the dry weather, last year and this year, but I don’t see....”  His own glass was empty, and when he tilted the jug over it, a few drops trickled out.  He looked at his watch.  “Think we could have another cocktail before dinner?” he asked.

II

Jack Holloway landed the manipulator in front of the cluster of prefab huts.  For a moment he sat still, realizing that he was tired, and then he climbed down from the control cabin and crossed the open grass to the door of the main living hut, opening it and reaching in to turn on the lights.  Then he hesitated, looking up at Darius.

There was a wide ring around it, and he remembered noticing the wisps of cirrus clouds gathering overhead through the afternoon.  Maybe it would rain tonight.  This dry weather couldn’t last forever.  He’d been letting the manipulator stand out overnight lately.  He decided to put it in the hangar.  He went and opened the door of the vehicle shed, got back onto the machine and floated it inside.  When he came back to the living hut, he saw that he had left the door wide open.

“Damn fool!” he rebuked himself.  “Place could be crawling with prawns by now.”

He looked quickly around the living room—­under the big combination desk and library table, under the gunrack, under the chairs, back of the communication screen and the viewscreen, beyond the metal cabinet of the microfilm library—­and saw nothing.  Then he hung up his hat, took off his pistol and laid it on the table, and went back to the bathroom to wash his hands.

As soon as he put on the light, something inside the shower stall said, “Yeeeek!” in a startled voice.

He turned quickly to see two wide eyes staring up at him out of a ball of golden fur.  Whatever it was, it had a round head and big ears and a vaguely humanoid face with a little snub nose.  It was sitting on its haunches, and in that position it was about a foot high.  It had two tiny hands with opposing thumbs.  He squatted to have a better look at it.

“Hello there, little fellow,” he greeted it.  “I never saw anything like you before.  What are you anyhow?”

The small creature looked at him seriously and said, “Yeek,” in a timid voice.