"Yloop?" he asked.

One of the bloated figures moved. The others, as always, either stared with opaque blank eyes or paid no attention whatever to ship or skipper, even though they'd come to see it.

"Yloop, me," said the bloated figure.

"Your swamp-car," Joe told him, unsmiling, "is in the ship. We will get it out very soon. It is fueled for—" He paused, calculated, and said carefully, "—it is fueled for half a year of Ganymede."

Yloop listened. He made no reply. He offered no expression of gratitude nor committed any of the small hypocricies which make human contacts endurable. Joe found himself frowning irritably. Ganymedians got under a human's skin.

Another bloated figure stirred.

"Me Ychan," said the lipless mouth.

"I suppose," said Joe ironically, "you want a swamp-car too?"

"No," said Ychan tonelessly. By the double belt of swamp-bear claws about his middle, he was high chief. "Yloop want swamp-car. Not Ychan. Ychan want talk."

Joe's eyebrows lifted. Almost he was tempted to be sarcastic. Talk was a novelty. But—

"Talk," he said flatly.

Behind him, the lock opened again. Dick Harkness and two of the crew came out in atmosphere-suits. With them came Rickey, the ship's mascot, in the tiny, canine space-suit which was the result of infinite labor in the crew's quarters during long hours of standby duty.

"Just for the heck of it, Joe," said Dick, grinning, "the hands decided to send Rickey to see what he'll do when he sees a gannygrass stalk that he'll take for a tree. The trick is he's in his space-suit and can't sniff at it."

"Wipe off that grin!" snapped Joe. "Take the dog back! I told you no jokes!"

Dick Harkness' face went blank. "I forgot! Sorry, Joe!"

He herded the crewmen back into the lock. But they still grinned. Ychan stared at them with expressionless eyes.

"Men mad," he said. "Why?"

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