d nothing. Dobrynin knew that he must buy more time.

"It doesn't matter, does it?"

"What?" He could feel the tension of the smaller man's mind.

"It doesn't matter that since I am twenty-five I have made no serious
mistake, that myself and many beside me have worked hard for thirty
years to make this place our home. It does not matter that we have
broken from the current. Still, we are dependent on others. We are
like the stalagmite, which must be fed from above. If anything comes
between us and the source, we are cut off. We cannot grow. And any
puny, so-called man with a putrid hammer, can come and chisel away at
our roots!" He could not contain his anger.

"I could kill you now!" cried Pecci. He raised the gun and would have
shot, but at that moment Dobrynin put a hand to his ear. A faint
voice, mingled with crackling static, had come suddenly into his almost
forgotten ear-piece.

"Governor, can. . .hear me?" It was Stein.

"Yes, Thomas. Try to speak louder. What is it?"

".....just received. . .information on the beam. We. . .incorrect by.
. . minutes."

"How many minutes?"

"Four. Must be sooner. Thirty seconds. . .now."

"Thirty seconds!" he cried. And regretted it as soon as the words had
left his mouth. He quickly punched twenty-five into the counter,
forgetting all other instruments.

"Yes....." Then no more was heard.

"Turn around, Dobrynin!"

"Go muck yourself!" he growled. If he was going to die, then let it be
like Trotsky.

14. 13. 12.

Pecci shot him in the back and killed him.

........................................................................
............................................................

ACT TWO

Andersen, Korchnoi and Larkspur Sectors
Months I through V
International Year: 2211

INVERSIONS

"There are various theories as to how insect life came to exist on
Newman's Planet, named for its American discoverer. Most suggest that
its seeds were somehow transported here from Earth, though there is
little agreement as to how, naturally or otherwise, this was
accomplished. Others state that it must have evolved here naturally.
But this theory runs into equal difficulty. For the insects of
Newman's world---and insects they are indeed, as like to our own
physiologically as one mammal is to another---resemble much too closely
specific genre already found on Earth.

"And yet there can be no denying that the fou