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saying, “Major Gumbs, you are being ridiculous. The explanation is quite obvious. Unless you are deliberately deceiving me, for what reason I cannot imagine, then our efforts to move in opposing directions must be pulling this creature apart.”
    McCarty was evidently confused by her geometry. Let her stay that way—it would keep her off balance until the fission was complete. No, that was no good. George himself was out of her reach already, and getting farther away—but how about Bellis? Her brain and McCarty’s were, if anything, closer together…
    What to do? If he warned the girl, that would only draw McCarty’s attention to her sooner. Unless he could misdirect her at the same time—
    There wasn’t much time left, he realised abruptly. If he was right in thinking that some physical linkage between the brains had occurred to make communication possible, those cells couldn’t hold out much longer; the gap between the two pairs of brains was widening steadily.
    “Vivian!” he said.
    “Yes, George?”
    Relieved, he said rapidly. “Listen, we’re not pulling this body apart, it’s splitting. That’s the way it reproduces. You and I will be in one half, Gumbs and McCarty in the other. If they don’t give us any trouble, we can all go where we please—”
    “Oh, I’m so glad!”
    What a warm voice she had… “Yes,” said George nervously, “but we may have to fight them; it’s up to them. So grow an arm , Vivian.”
    “I’ll try,” she said doubtfully. “I don’t know—”
    McCarty’s voice cut across hers. “Ah. Major Gumbs, since you have eyes, It will be your task to see to it that those two do not escape. Meanwhile, I suggest that you, also, grow an arm.”
    “Doing my best,” said Gumbs.
    Puzzled, George glanced downward, past his own half-formed arm: there, almost out of sight, was a fleshy bulge under Gumbs’s section of the rim! The major had been working on it in secret, keeping it hidden… and it was already better developed than George’s.
    “Oh-oh,” said Gumbs abruptly. “Look here, Miss McCarty, Meister’s been leading you up the garden path. Look here, I menu, you and I aren’t going to be in the same half. How could we be? We’re on opposite sides of the blasted thing. It’s going be you and Miss Bellis, me and Meister.”
    The monster was developing a definite waistline. The spinal cords had rotated, now, so that there was clear space between them in the center.
    “Yes,” said McCarty faintly. “Thank you, Major Gumbs.”
    “George! ” came Vivian’s frightened voice, distant and weak. “What shall I do?”
    “Grow an arm!” he shouted.
    There was no reply.
III
    Frozen, George watched McCarty’s arm, the rock-fragment still clutched at the end of it, rise into view and swing leftward at full stretch over the bubbling surface of the monster. He had time to see it bob up and viciously down again; time to think, Still short, thank God—that’s McCarty’s right arm, it’s farther from Vivian’s brain than it was from mine; time, finally, to realise that he could not possibly help her before McCarty lengthened the arm a few centimeters more than were necessary. The fission was not more than half complete; and he could no more move to where he wanted to be than a Siamese twin could walk around his brother.
    Then his time was up. A flicker of motion warned him, and he looked back to see a lumpy, distorted pseudo-hand clutching for his eye stalks.
    Instinctively he brought his own hand up, grasped the other’s wrist and hung on desperately. It was half again the size of his, and so strongly muscled that although his leverage was better, he couldn’t force it back or hold it away; he could only keep the system oscillating. up and down, adding his strength to Gumbs’s so that the mark was overshot.
    Gumbs began to vary the force and rhythm of his movements, trying to catch him off guard. A thick finger brushed the base of one eye stalk.
    “Sorry about this,