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Meister,” said Gumbs’s voice. “No hard feelings in it, on my side. Between us (oof) I don’t fancy that McCarty woman much—but (ugh! almost had you that time) beggars can’t be choosers. Ah. Way I see it, I’ve got to look after myself; mean to say (ugh) if I don’t, who will? See what I mean?”
    George did not reply. Astonishingly enough, he was no longer afraid, either for himself or for Vivian; he was simply overpoweringly, ecstatically, monomaniacally angry. Power from somewhere was surging into his arm; fiercely concentrating, he thought Bigger! Stronger! Longer! More arm!
    The arm grew. Visibly it added substance to itself, it lengthened, thickened, bulged with muscle. So did Gumbs’s.
    He began another arm. So did Gumbs.
    All around him the surface of the monster was bubbling violently. And, George realised finally, the lenticular bulk of it was perceptibly shrinking. Its curious breathing system was inadequate; the thing was cannibalising itself, destroying its own tissues to make up the difference.
    How small could it get and still support two human tenants?
    And which brain would it dispense with first?
    He had no leisure to think about it. Scrabbling in the grass with his second hand, Gumbs had failed to find anything that would serve as a weapon; now, with a sudden lurch, he swung their entire body around.
    The fission was complete.
    That thought reminded George of Vivian and McCarty. He risked a split second’s glance behind him, saw nothing but a featureless ovoid mound, and looked back in time to see Gumbs’s half-grown right fist pluck a long, sharp-pointed dead branch out of the grass. In the next instant the thing came whipping at his eyes.
    The lip of the river bank was a meter away to the left. George made it in one abrupt surge. They slipped, tottered, hesitated, hands clutching wildly—and toppled, end over end, hurtling in a cloud of dust and pebbles down the breakneck slope to a meaty smash at the bottom.
    The universe made one more giant turn around them and came to rest. Half blinded, George groped for the hold he had lost, found the wrist and seized it.
    “Oh, Lord,” said Gumbs’s voice, “that’s done me. I’m hurt, Meister. Go on, man, finish it, will you? Don’t waste time.”
    George stared at him suspiciously, without relaxing his grip. “What’s the matter with you?”
    “I tell you I’m done,” said Gumbs pettishly. “Paralysed. I can’t move.”
    They had fallen, George saw, onto a small boulder, one of many with which the river bed was strewn. This one was roughly conical; they were draped over it, and the blunt point was directly under Gumbs’s spinal cord, a few centimeters from the brain.
    “Gumbs,” he said, “that may not be as bad as you think. If I can show you it isn’t, will you give up and put yourself under my orders?”
    “How do you mean? My spine’s crushed.”
    “Never mind that now. Will you or won’t you?”
    “Why, yes,” said Gumbs. “That’s very decent of you, Meister, matter of fact. You have my word, for what it’s worth.”
    “All right,” said George. Straining hard, he managed to get their body down off the boulder. Then he stared up at the slope down which they had tumbled. Too steep; he’d have to find an easier way back. He turned and started off to eastward, paralleling the thin stream that still flowed in the center of the watercourse.
    “What’s up now?” Gumbs asked after a moment.
    “We’ve got to find a way up to the top,” George said impatiently. “I may still be able to help Vivian.”
    “Ah, yes. Afraid I was thinking about myself, Meister. If you don’t mind telling me—”
    She couldn’t still be alive, George was thinking despondently, but if there were any small chance—“You’ll be all right,” he said. “If you were still in your old body that would be a fatal injury, or permanently disabling, anyhow, but not in this thing. You can repair yourself as easily as you can grow a new