James Blish was the first to make the cognitive leap necessary to one of the most enduring of science fiction's themes: that of mankind adapting to his environment not by changing the planet, but by changing himself.

A seed ship has crash landed on a world made entirely of ocean except for a tiny triangular continent. The men know that they will die, but their mission is all-important -- to seed the planet with men who, generations from then, will rejoin the human race as a proud and independent people.

But the humans of this watery world in that long distant time will be human in name only, for their spirits will be gigantic, but their bodies -- microscopic.

This story is collected in

• The Seedling Stars