alified to offer an opinion, but, strictly off the
record, I would hazard the guess that he's about to metamorphose again."

"He never did it in public before," Iversen said worriedly.

"The old order changeth," Smullyan told him. "You'd better call
Harkaway."

"What does _he_ know!"

"Too little and, at the same time, too much," the doctor declaimed,
dissociating himself professionally from the case. "Too much and too
little. Eat, drink, be merry, iniquitous Earthmen, for you died
yesterday!"

"Oh, shut up," Iversen said automatically, and dispatched a message to
Harkaway with the information that the thor'glitch appeared to be
metamorphosing again and that his presence was requested in the
captain's cabin.

[Illustration]

The rest of the officers accompanied Harkaway, all of them with the air
of attending a funeral rather than a rebirth, Iversen noted nervously.
They weren't armed, though, so Bridey couldn't be turning into anything
dangerous.

* * * * *

Now it came to pass that the thor'glitch's mid-section, having swelled
to unbearable proportions, began to quiver. Suddenly, the skin split
lengthwise and dropped cleanly to either side, like a banana peel.

Iversen pressed forward to see what fresh life-form the bulging cavity
had held. The other officers all stood in a somber row without moving,
for all along, Iversen realized, they had known what to expect, what was
to come. And they had not told him. But then, he knew, it was his own
fault; he had refused to be told.

Now, looking down at the new life-form, he saw for himself what it was.
Lying languidly in the thor'glitch skin was a slender youth of a pallor
which seemed excessive even for a member of a green-skinned race. He had
large limpid eyes and a smile of ineffable sweetness.

"By Nopus Secundus," Iversen groaned. "I'm sunk."

"Naturally the ultimate incarnation for a life-form would be humanoid,"
Harkaway said with deep reproach. "What else?"

"I'm surprised you didn't figure that out for yourself, sir," the first
officer added. "Even if you did refuse to read Harkaway's book, it seems
obvious."

"Does it?" Smullyan challenged. "Does it, indeed? Is Man the highest
form of life in an irrational cosmos? Then all causes are lost ones!...
So many worlds," he muttered in more subdued tones, "so much to do, so
little done, such things to be!"

"The Flimbotzik were telling Harkaway about their _own_ life cycl