Mad, impossible world! Sun-blasted by day,
cold-wracked by night—and life condensed by
radiation into eight days! Sim eyed the
Ship—if he only dared reach it and
escape! ... but it was more than half an
hour distant—the limit of life itself!
And he would live exactly eight days.
Morning relaxed the mighty granite cliff muscles. It was the time of
the Avalanche.
Flowers were burnt into effigies, grasses sucked back into rocks like
singed snakes, flower seeds whirled and fell in the sudden furnace
blast of wind, sown far into gullies and crannies, ready to blossom at
sunset tonight, and then go to seed and die again.
The light ran like
mercury, sizzling and roasting the caves, poking inward, but never
penetrating deeply enough. It lighted the caves. It made the hollows of
the cliff comfortably warm.
His thoughts whirled through the metal
ship. He smelled the razor sharp smell of joined metal. He heard the
hull contract with night, relax with day.