Read "The Forgotten Planet" by Murray Leinster online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
It was very fortunate indeed that the feast took place when it did. Two days later it would probably have been impossible, and three days later it would have been too late to do any good. But coming when it did, it made the difference which was all the difference in the world.
Only thirty hours after the feasting which followed the death of the clotho spider, Burl's fellows -- from Jon to Dor to Tet and Dik and Saya -- had come to know a numb despair which the other creatures of his world were simply a bit too stupid to achieve.