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Cathy gulped. “I-I’m afraid so, too, Lon,” she said in a small voice. “But it’s nice we met each other, anyhow. Now we know we love each other. I don’t like the idea of dying, but I’m glad we knew we loved each other before it happened.”

Lon’s hands clenched fiercely. Then the rage went away. He said almost humorously, “Carson—he’s back in Cetopolis. I wonder how he feels. He has no better chance than anybody else. Maybe he’s sent off spacegrams, but no ship could possibly get here in time.”

Cathy shivered a little. “Let’s not think about him. Just about us. We haven’t much time.”

And just then, very strangely, an idea came to Lon Simpson. He tensed.

After a moment, he said in a very queer voice, “This isn’t a nova. It’s a flare-up. The sun isn’t exploding. It’s just too hot, too big for the temperature inside it, and it’s a closed system. So radiation pressure has been building up. Now it’s got to be released. So it will spout geysers of its own substance. They’ll go out over hundreds of thousands of miles. But in a couple of weeks it will be back—nearly—to normal.”