"You are a stupid, clumsy, few-headed piece of provender!"

Gop flushed clear down to his tails. "I'm sorry," he said. "I can't think of everything at once! I must have accidentally activated the tharn when I moved it. I'm sorry!"

Pud clapped a tentacle to his prime forehead. "What next!" he moaned.

"Oh, Johnny, Johnny," Helen sobbed. "I tripped when I started to turn around, and fell down the other side, and all of a sudden ... it was horrible ... I thought I was going crazy—"

Johnny Gorman had his arms tight around her. Behind her back, his blaster was pointed straight down the far slope of the ridge, ready to atomize anything that moved.

"What, honey?" he said. "What happened? I didn't see anything near you ... what happened?"

"It was like I was in a hurricane ... I couldn't see anything, but something seemed to be whirling around me, something as big as the universe ... and it seemed to be whirling inside me too! I felt—it felt like ... Johnny, I was crossed!"

"Crossed?" He shook her gently. "What do you mean, you were crossed?"

"It felt like my right side was my left side, and, my heart was beating backwards, and my eyes were looking at each other, and I was just twisted all downside up outside and inside out upside, and ... Johnny," she wailed, "I am going crazy!"

"Oh, no, you're not," he said grimly. "You're going back to the ship! I don't know what gives with this creepy clod, but I know we're not moving an inch outside the ship until we blast off! Come on!"

"They're crawling back toward their ship, Pud ... look out, they're heading for the dimensional-warp!"

Pud extended a tentacle ninety feet and slapped the dimensional-warp out of the path of the scurrying creatures.

The warp bounced silently on the rocky ground, caromed like a fire-ball from boulder to boulder, encountered stray radiation from the tharn-field that still glowed invisibly on the other side of the ridge, and became activated; it emitted concentric spheres of nameless-colored energy, and a vast snapping and crackling.

"There," Gop thought triumphantly at Pud. "That's just what I did with the tharn-field.... I guess nobody is above accidents, eh?"

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