Within an hour of the first eruptions, so quickly and with such fury that there had been no time for preparation, almost three-fifths of their race had been decimated. The cities Kes and Uykvabask and Laylor had gone under with roaring flames and the scraping of stone against flesh. The Great Ocean had exploded with a red-hot bubbling and roared onto the land, washing everything before it. The lava flows raced Eastward to the Ceremonial Grounds and Westward to the Hunting Preserve. Everywhere the ground opened without warning or reason, and life sank beneath the earth. _Wrong_, the Group of Deciders admitted in their last refuge. _We were wrong we have been foolish we have rejected our only salvation we must prepare the group-mind send our plea for aid into space speak to the outsiders ask them to help us._ They thought their instructions away from themselves, to their kin across Diamore's blasted face. _Prepare! Join! Speak to the outsiders!_ And when they had gathered together every last Diamorai, with more dying as they joined the chain, with the feel of agony radiating through the group-mind, the message weakly rose. Tentatively it probed at the inner surface of Diamore's atmosphere. The power was, perhaps, insufficient to reach the spaceship. Three-fifths of the Diamoraii were lost to the group-mind. The group-mind struggled, frantically beaming, in hopelessness trying to get through to the Earthmen who rode above them. The men who rode above them--waiting for a signal from the Diamoraii. * * * * * Shreve turned away from the plates, flicking them off. "I can't stand it, Karl! How senseless! Because one race dealt them unfairly, they closed their eyes to help from anyone else." Teller crossed his legs as he sat on the couch. He did not appear to be disturbed by the sight from below. "Luther, you can't go on destroying yourself. You did everything you could. You were as resourceful as any man could have been. "Now you'd better get back to the schedule. We're over four and a half months due at our next landfall." He saw his words were having no effect. "Look, Luther, I've been in this business almost as long as you. I've seen this time and again. When you come up against an adolescent race, that doesn't know when it's got something too big to handle, there's nothing you can do but back off and let them handle it themselves. If they don't get smart enough to know when to call the fireman--that's their agony. Not _yours_!" "What's the next stop on our itinerary?" he asked the last almost jauntily, consciously trying to take Shreve's mind off the cinder that spun below the _Wallower_. He rose and stretched, as though from a profound sleep. For a moment he stared in wonder. Then he stepped into the shaft and quietly left the control room. He had never thought he'd see the day when Luther Shreve cried like a child. THE END