* * * * * After a moment his pupils expanded so widely that the stars seemed to grow larger, rushing in to meet the plunging space ship. The luminous needles and dial faces of his helmet instruments became glaring little lanterns. Everything normal except humidity, slightly over the red line, and temperature. Temperature: 102.5 F., he read. He wished fervently that he hadn't put on that last garment. Spaceman's underwear, it was called. Or maybe it would have been better to-- An uneasy thought crept into the back of his head, and he strained his smarting eyes down at the temperature gauge. In only a minute or two it had advanced one tenth degree to 102.6 F. Now his breath rasped more rapidly as he gasped more oxygen. Pressure was down slightly. He moved to the valve and adjusted it. On an impulse he opened it wide for a second. The pressure needle pegged, his ears popped, but no coolness came from the baffled intake. He normalized the pressure again. The hose must be double-walled, he thought. The air should at least have had the coolness of its own expansion. He wiggled inside his sweat-sopping clothes. Why didn't the perspiration dry off and cool him? The answer came with uncomfortable clarity. Where could the body moisture go? Where, for that matter, could the body heat go? Temperature: 102.9 F. Frane Lewis was no coward, but his hands began plucking nervously at the space suit. The previously tough, folds of shiny, impermeable fabric were now distended into a rock-like rigidity. He stood up suddenly, and his feet squished in his sandals. The sweat was a puddle up over his toes. He was getting weak and thirsty. Very thirsty. He felt he must have no more water in him. He stood in a trancelike state for minutes staring blindly into the heavens. His mind wouldn't work right. He hurt. He itched. He craved water, gallons of it. Then he stopped sweating. He had been deliberately keeping his eyes off the temperature dial, forcing his mind away from a problem he didn't understand, when he felt his face go dry. The caked streaks of salt made his skin feel stiff and itchy. Temperature: 104.3 F. Frane now knew he was sick. At that rate of increase he couldn't last much longer. His head was buzzing, and the fantasies of fever were flashing lights across his bleared vision. He strove to fight off the hallucinations. He focussed his eyes on the dim-faced chronometer and realized with a start that he had endured over three hours of his vigil. Perhaps he could last out. Whatever the fever was, it must ease off sometime. He staggered to the oxygen control, eased it open to full again and watched the temperature needle for minutes. He became dazed. Then his eyes came alive again, and he stared. Temperature: 104.5 F. His hands drifted listlessly to the control again. This time he throttled it down, down, below normal pressure. Slowly, slower than the minute hand of a watch, the needle climbed on. Why? _Why?_