Pohl rejected "The Portable Star", telling Asimov in no uncertain terms how bad the story was.
In his autobiography In Joy Still Felt, Asimov states that "The Portable Star" was his least favorite story of all time.
The story concerns two couples, the Brookses and the Van Hornes, who go on a six-month space tour in a "flivver" owned by Holden Brooks.
When the flivvers suffers a malfunction, they land on an uninhabited planet with a nitrogen-argon atmosphere to make repairs.
Holden realizes that the energy beings are actually children, and he manages to use an open flame (which they have never seen before, and which is the "portable star" of the title) to frighten them away long enough to regain control of himself and flee the planet.