He had tried to radio for help, but radioing from where he was, was like trying to signal from the heart of an atomic bomb; if a signal got through, it would be only a part of the meaningless jabber of static that always came from here. And if the little black speck were seen, it would only be taken for a stray meteorite moving across the sun's incandescent face. The ship was a little spherical world. It turned on its own axis once in an hour and twenty minutes. That was its little day. The orbit spiralled now a mere quarter million miles from the sun, one little year to two earth days. It moved closer at a rate that accelerated a few feet per second every second. Eventually, said the impassive rows of equations in the log, the inward movement would stop, as keeping the same speed in a smaller circle, the ship's centrifugal force increased to set up an equilibrium. But that point would be three thousand miles below the sun's surface. The ship would never reach it. Jim MacDonald inhabited a doomed little world. * * * * * He chuckled. He even had a moon. The natural physical function of a few minutes before had left a jagged little chunk of ice swinging around the ship, outside the waste lock on the side away from the sun. But that wouldn't last long. It would pass into the hot light, and vanish in a puff of steam. Now the plastic fittings of the compartment began to send up a nostril stinging stench. Jim leafed over a few pages in the log to the page printed at the top: ... SUGGESTIONS FOR REDESIGN OF SPACE-SHIPS. Under his note, _Enlarge cooling systems_, he wrote, _Replace urea formaldehyde plastics with metals, and insulate compartment thermometers from bulkheads._ Feeling foolish at the useless act of writing that which no one would ever read, Jim swung the log away. His tongue peeled from the roof of his mouth like a strip of adhesive tape and he dragged across the compartment for a drink. Glancing toward the sun, he held his aluminum cup under the spout and pressed the hot button gingerly. Although the windows on that side were blanked out almost purple, the sun's horizon glared through in a heaving mass of leaping gassy prominences. Jim turned away, his face wrinkling into a grimace. Across the compartment a little cabinet held a pistol. It would be a simple sane thing to walk across there, take out the pistol and bring this to a sudden stop. He stepped toward it, then turned away ashamed. Spacemen didn't think like that. Ahead of the ship something flared into incandescent brilliance. Waves of force pounded on the front, the deck heaved. Jim sprawled on his face and skidded over under the instrument panel, his cup clattering along beside him. The deck scorched his hands and face. He wriggled out and dragged himself up to the chair, clinging tightly. But it was all over. He stood for a moment, waiting, then sat down.