length into pieces. They fell writhing in separate anguish all around the girl, crimsoning the water to a thick red.

He lifted her easily up onto the raft-creature. She sank down in a dripping and exhausted heap.

"For a half-breed," she whispered between gasps, "you have courage." Then she closed her eyes. The raft rippled and bucked slightly as something huge stirred against its bottom.

The night hours before morning were illuminated, a strange twilight of phosphorescence. They sat in the middle of the organic raft and waited tensely. The stirring beneath it had grown more violent.

"Man isn't the only highly adaptable animal—not even the most ingenious." The girl's tone was pedantic, amazingly learned. Moljar nodded surlily, not so interested, apparently, in lectures. He edged toward the girl until their shoulders touched. She paused. Continued.

"The animal that build this raft for itself is hiding beneath it now. The serpent frightened it. Soon it will have to come up for air."

"How do you know so much," he growled.

"Earth University of Interplanetary Fauna," she said.

He sneered. "A mutant!"

"My parents dyed my hair, and with another name I got by for a while. I was going to be a field worker, but they caught up with me. They always do. Anyway, as I was saying, this creature is much like an ianthina, or snail, of earth. It breathes through a siphon, or tubular proboscis. It uses this siphon to suck in air with which it builds these rafts for itself, to keep its heavy body and shell afloat. It's an adventurer like you, Moljar. It spends its life floating or sailing about like a ship."

Moljar grunted. He moved one corded arm behind her. She shifted a little.

"Very interesting thing," she said. "Biology. When this ianthina decides to build its raft, it exudes a sticky mucous over the surface of the sea, layer after layer of it. Then it draws air into its siphon and permits the bubbles to escape beneath the mucous to which they cling. These air sacks imprison the air as the mucous hardens. And we have this very strong raft, a life boat with air tanks. Aren't we lucky?"

The raft jolted violently. "Are we?" said Moljar. "Maybe it does not want to share its raft."

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