"No. They have to touch us. I've been touched, but the rest could go back."

She nodded. He waited for the condemnation, but there was only puzzlement in her face. "Why?"

And then, before he could answer, her own intelligence gave her the same answer he had found for himself. "The spawning ground!"

It was the only thing they could do. Earth needed a place to plant her seed, but no world other than Earth could ever be trusted to preserve that seed for generation after generation. Some worlds already were becoming uncertain.

Here, though, the blobs had adapted men to the alien world instead of men having to adapt the whole planet to their needs. Here, the strange children of man's race could grow, develop and begin the long trek back to civilization. The gadgets would be lost for a time. But perhaps some of the attitudes of civilized man would remain to make the next rise to culture a better one.

"We're needed here," he told her, his voice pleading for the understanding he couldn't yet fully give himself. "These people need as rich a set of bloodlines as possible to give the new race strength. The fifty men and women on this ship will be needed to start them with a decent chance. We can't go to Earth, where nobody would believe or accept the idea—or even let us come back. We have to stay here."

She smiled then and moved toward him, groping for his strength. "Be fruitful," she whispered. "Be fruitful and spawn and replenish an earth."

"No," he told her. "Replenish the stars."

But she was no longer listening, and that part of his idea could wait.

Some day, though, their children would find a way to the starlanes again, looking for other worlds. With the blobs to help them, they could adapt to most worlds. The unchanged spirit would lead them through all space, and the changing bodies would claim worlds beyond numbering.

Some day, the whole universe would be a spawning ground for the children of men!

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