"What have you found, Jesse?" Matt began, but the fat man waved him to silence.
"Not so fast. I want a look at this under the microscope first. Then I want all of you to see it, before I say anything. Where is the microscope? Oh, here."
With trembling hands he began to prepare a slide. Matt watched him fascinated, noting the deftness of the biologist's pudgy fingers. At length, perspiring freely, Sawyer put his eye to the microscope, making several adjustments. He drew in his breath sharply.
The jar that he had been carrying, Matt saw, was filled with some liquid that radiated a pale yellow light. Was it phosphorescing? He ran his hand through his coal black hair, his blue eyes narrowed.
"I thought so!" Sawyer muttered. "I thought so. Come here, Frazer. Take a look."
The biochemist rose, looked through the microscope. "Well, I'll be damned!" he ejaculated. "Where did you get that specimen?"
"Never mind. Isaac, you and Matt come see what you think."
When it came Matt's turn to put his eye to the aperture, he could distinguish nothing at first. Then he made out dozens of minute amoeba-like organisms squirming in the specimen on the slide.
Their resemblance to amoebae, he saw, was only superficial. Each one of the minute organisms was glowing like a very small incandescent light. He glanced up in bewilderment.
"Well," said Sawyer, "What do you make of them? Are they plant or animal?"