She mused, "They are all jealous of me. They say they wouldn't marry a blob. They mean they couldn't.... Do you have to carry that tin ball with you all the time?"
"Yes. It is my communication sphere. In it I record my thoughts. I would be lost without it."
"Oh, like a diary. How quaint!"
Yes, those were the golden days. The grubs appeared to me in a new light, for was not Margaret also a grub? Yet she seemed not so unfinished as the rest. Though lacking a natural outer casing, she had not the appearance of crawling out from under a rock. She was quite an attractive "girl." And she cared for me.
What more could I wish? I was affluent. I was respected. I was in control of my environment. And I could aid my friends, of whom I had now acquired an astonishing number.
Moreover, my old space-ineptitude sickness had left me. I never felt better in my life. Ah, golden days, one after the other like a pleasant dream. And soon I am to be married!
IV
There has been a sudden change. As on the Planet Hecube, where full summer turns into the dead of the winter in minutes, to the destruction of many travelers, so was it here. My world is threatened!
It is tottering, all that I have built up. I will fight. I will have the best lawyers on the planet. I am not done. But I am threatened....