Adventures in the Far Future & Tales of Outer Space — page 329: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

“Yes. The Crystal Mines are in the liver of that worm and the crystals are so valuable because they are, of course, highly condensed cellular energy.” Drummond was round-eyed with awe. “Then... then | am the outpost command of a world beyond the Black Nebula, a world so gigantic that even a worm is thousands of kilometers long!” “When | inspected the Black Nebula,” said Gedso gently, “| discovered that it was not a barrier in space, but a fold or some such thing. As | say, | don’t know. | only know the effect. Ships approaching the Crystal Mines undergo a sort of transformation. The reason so many never return is because they fail to reverse that transformation and so hurtle through the hundreds of light-years forever, no larger than microscopic bullets.” “What's that?” “Well, according to what we found, a diminution of size takes place. The worm is just an ordinary worm on an ordinary leaf. And the ‘things’ are just ordinary phagocytes. lf we proceed in the future to burn out the heart of the worms we mine, then we will have to do no fighting. Because of a changed time factor a dead worm will last for years. And if we watch certain manifestations in the spaceships, we can get them to keep penetrating the Black Nebula until they are again restored to size. | took a chart of the interior of these worms out of a text on etymology, once | had determined the kind of worm it was—” “Then—then my command—” “Why, yes,” said Gedso, “I think it is so. You need have no worries about your command. No more fighting, better conditions, more crystals mined—” “But,” gagged Drummond, deflated and broken, “but my commancd ... is just the liver of an ordinary worm ... perhaps in a tree in some farmer’s yard—” CORniclooo SS (SO)