"Then there is no progress. Progress is purely a matter of size."
"But even to you, growth means death and destruction. On our planet we grow in numbers. When the world is overpopulated, enough people die to leave it under-populated again. The human race, in a sense, is more immortal than you, Limio."
Karns saw Adstrom's ship in a dive. He jerked the controls and sent his own craft forward out of the way. The action was mistaken by Limio as an attack. The huge, fifty-mile tentacle shot out toward the Burnt Atom II. Karns twisted the controls again and dodged, so that the blow barely missed his ship.
Adstrom, however, was not so lucky. As he attempted to follow Karns' maneuver, his craft came directly in line with the piston-like plunge of the tentacle. He swerved his ship, but he swerved too late. The tentacle caught Adstrom's ship a glancing blow.
The ship bounced upward out of control. But it was caught by the gravity of Chaos and it tumbled back, like a falling leaf, toward the surface of the planet.
A roar came from Limio.
Adstrom's ship tumbled close to the ground before the commander fired the rockets. Even with the fuel blast, he was unsuccessful in keeping the craft off the ground, but he managed to steer it to a safe landing on a rocky cliff some distance from the huge body of Limio.