crouched in the gloom inside the Para’s net, listening intently.
Finally there was silence.
“What’s happened?” he whispered tensely.
“Didin does not say.”
More eternities went by. Then the darkness began to wane
as Noc dropped cautiously toward them.
“Noc, where did they go?”
Noc signaled with his tentacle and turned on his axis
toward Para. “He says he lost sight of them. Wait1 hear
Didin.”
Lavon could hear nothing; what the Para “heard” was
some one of thesemi-telepathic impulses which made up the
Proto’s own language.
“He says Dioran is dead.”
“Good! Ask him to bring the body back here.”
There was a short silence. “He says he will bring it. What
good is a dead rotifer, Lavon?”
“You’ll see,” Lavon said. He watched anxiously until Didin
glided backwards into the lighted area, his poisonous ram
sunk deep into the flaccid body of the rotifer, which, after
the delicately-organized fashion of its kind, was already b&-
ginning to disintegrate.
“Let me out of this net, Para.”
The Proto jerked sharply for a fraction of a turn on its
long axis, snapping the threads off at the base; the movement
had to be made with great precision, or its pellicle would tear
as well. The tangled mass rose gently with the current and
drifted off over the abyss.
Lavon swam forward and, seizing one buckled edge of
Dicran’s armor, tore away a huge strip of it. His hands
plunged into the now almost shapeless body and came out
again holding two dark spheroids: eggs.
“Destroy these, Didin,” he ordered. The Proto obligingly
slashed them open.