"Oscillations," I exclaimed, excitedly. "A century ago Eddington pictured all matter throughout the universe as alternating between a state of contraction and expansion. Oh, Joan, don't you see? These creatures are composed not of solid matter, but of some form of vibrating energy. They possess an oscillatory life cycle which makes them contract and expand in small-scale duplication of the larger pulse of our contracting and expanding universe. They become huge, then small, then huge again. They may expand and contract a thousand times before they die. Perhaps they—"

A scream from Joan cut my explanation short. "Richard, the web's slackening. I'm going to fall."

Fifteen minutes later we were rocketing upward through Jupiter's immense cloud blanket, locked in each other's arms.

Joan was sobbing. "It's unbelievable, Richard. We were saved by—by a miracle."

"No, Joan—Eddington's oscillations. Although I'll admit it seemed like a miracle when those tiny wasps became frightened by enormous us descending upon them, and flew straight through the quartz port into the mist."

"What do you suppose made the web slacken?"

"Well," I said. "That web was spun out of the bodies of those dwindling wasps. It seems to have been a sort of energy web, since it shriveled to a few charred fibers before we could pluck it from our tunics. Apparently it was sustained by energies emanating from the wasps which burned out the instant the wasps dwindled."

"Richard, hold me close. I thought we would never see Earth again."

"I'm not sure that we will," I warned her. "We've lost our crew and we can't even set our course by the stars. Perhaps the direction gauges will function again when the atomotors carry us beyond Jupiter's orbit, but I wouldn't bank on it."

"Oh, Richard, how could you? You said you liked uncertainty, danger. You said—"

"Never mind what I said. I'm just being realistic, that's all. Do you realize how heavily the cards are stacked against us?"

"No, and I don't particularly care. Kiss me, Richard."

Grumblingly I obeyed. It would have been better if we could have saved our energies for the grim ordeal ahead of us, but it was impossible to reason with Joan when she was in one of her reckless moods.

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