 What lie does Gwayne plan to tell the crew?
They were something more—and something less—they were, in short, humanity's hopes for survival! [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, September 1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The Starship Pandora creaked and groaned as her landing pads settled unevenly in the mucky surface of the ugly world outside. She seemed to be restless to end her fool's errand here, two hundred light years from the waiting hordes on Earth. Straining metal plates twanged and echoed through her hallways. Captain Gwayne cursed and rolled over, reaching for his boots. The starlanes between Earth and her potential colonies were rough on the men who traveled them now. "About a dozen blobs held something like a convention a little ways north of us. The blobs were a peculiarity of this planet about which nobody knew anything. "And our two cadets sneaked out again. Gwayne swore softly to himself. Earth couldn't turn out enough starmen in the schools, so promising kids were being shipped out for training as cadets on their twelfth birthday. The two he'd drawn, Kaufman and Pinelli, seemed to be totally devoid of any sense of caution. The blobs hadn't seemed dangerous, and the local animals were apparently all herbivorous and harmless. But something had happened to the exploration party fifteen years back, and to the more recent ship under Hennessy that was sent to check up. The Sol-type sun must be rising, since there was a dim light. Even the deep gorge where they'd found Hennessy's carefully buried ship was completely hidden by the fog. There were three of the blobs dancing about over the grazing animals now, as they often seemed to do. Earth had ordered him to detour here, after leaving his load of deep-sleep stored colonists on Official World 71, to check on any sign of Hennessy. If there was no sign in another day or so of what had happened to the men who'd deserted their ship and its equipment, he'd have to report back. He would have left before, if a recent landslip hadn't exposed enough of the buried ship for his metal locators to spot from the air by luck. Now the three were streaking at fantastic speed to a spot near the ship, to hover excitedly above something that moved there. He saw the two cadets then, heading back to the waiting ship, just beyond the movement he'd seen through the mist. Something began to heave upwards.
 Everyone is already infected.
 There is not enough fuel to get back to Earth.  The ship is broken.  Earth no longer exists.  Everyone is already infected.