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Lavon. Lavon was created by “Arthur Merlyn,” the pseudonym of James Blish, and appeared in “Sunken Universe” (Super Science Stories, May 1942) and “Surface Tension” (Galaxy, Aug. 1952); the two stories were revised and published as The Seedling Stars (1956).

“In a little-known corner of this galaxy, the watery world of Hydrot hurtles endlessly around the red star, Tau Ceti. For many months its single small continent has been snowbound, and the many pools and lakes which dot the continent have been locked in the grip of ice.” But now the snow and ice are melting, and Para, the protozoan, awakens Lavon from the amniotic sac which is his refuge. Para is the “Wise One” and leader of the humans on Hydrot, and he must fight against “the evil rotifers—the Eaters—swarming forever in the upper reaches of the sky.” Lavon is armed only with the Protos, protozoans, the “greatest natural enemies of the Eaters in a world where evolution had skipped the crustacean.” Lavon and the Protos succeed in wiping out most of the Eaters’ eggs before they are forced to return to hibernation.

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