The pot was dumped.
Taylor dropped the rope and faced the sphere. He saw the charred pile of ashes beside the inhuman creature. Nearby was a fused tube of metal, all that was left of Pember's rifle.
"All right, you devil!" shouted Taylor. "Strike and be damned! There's one thing you can't fix, and that's the metal pot. Your spores are dead. Your mistake was in having a metal pot for a mother!"
Taylor sensed understanding in the sphere. Those eyes that were not eyes, but windows of the mind, seemed to fade. Flame licked out again from the monster, but it did not launch toward Taylor. Nor was Masters the target.
Instead, the flame reached toward the fading yellow hemisphere and the cooling pool of metal on the floor. There lay the hopes of the species on this planet, wrecked with a block and tackle.
Plop!
The hemisphere exploded like a bubble.
Plop!
The mourning sphere disappeared.
Plop. Plop. Plop.