was here.
“Lavon! Look at Paral”
Lavon forced himself to turn and look at his Proto ally.
The great slipper had settled to the deck, where it was lying
with only a feeble pulsation of its cilia. Inside, its vacuoles
were beginning to swell, to become bloated, pear-shaped
bubbles, crowding the granulated cytoplasm, pressing upon
the dark nuclei.
“Is . . . is he dying?”
“This cell is dying,” Para said, as coldly as always. “But
go ongo on. There is much to learn, and you may live, even
though we do not. Go on.”
“You’refor us now?” Lavon whispered.
“We have alway been for you. Push your folly to the utter-
most. We will benefit in the end, and so will Man.”
The whisper died away. Lavon called the creature again,
but it did not respond.
There was a wooden clashing from below, and then Shar’s
voice came tinnily from one of the megaphones. “Lavon, go
aheadi The diatoms are dying, too, and then we’ll be without
power. Make it as quickly and directly as you can.”
Grimly, Lavon leaned forward. “The ‘star’ is directly over
the land we’re approaching.”
“It is? It may go lower still and the shadows will get longer.
That may be our only hope.”
Lavon had not thought of that. He rasped into the banked
megaphones. Once more, the ship began to move, a little
faster now, but seemingly still at a crawl. The thirty-two
wheels rumbled.
It got hotter.
Steadily, with a perceptible motion, the “star” sank in
Lavon’s face. -Suddenly a new terror struck him. Suppose it
should continue to go down until it Was gone entirely? Blast-
ing though it was now, it was the only source of heat. Would