on--those imaginary people--to act
unreasonably.

But presently his mind was working again.

"We've got to make some plans for ourselves," he said. "We can live back
on Earth, of course. We've already made a neat sum out of the broadcasts
from this trip. But I don't think we'll want to live the way one has to
live on Earth, with too many people there. I'd like--."

Somebody came clattering up the stairs from below.

"Johnny?" It was Bell. "Is he up here?"

Cochrane released Babs.

"No. He's not here. Why?"

"He's missing," said Bell apprehensively. "Alicia says he took a gun. A
gun's gone, anyhow. He's vanished!"

Cochrane swore under his breath. A fool asserting his dignity with a gun
could be a serious matter indeed. He switched on the control-room
lights. He was not there. They went down and hunted over the main
saloon. He was not there. Then Holden called harshly from the next deck
down.

There was Alicia by the inner airlock door. Her face was deathly pale.
She had opened the door. The outer door was open too--and it had not
been opened since this last landing by anybody else. The landing-sling
cables were run out. They swung slowly in the light that fell upon them
from the inside of the ship.

A smell came in the opening. It was the smell of beasts. It was a musky,
ammoniacal smell, somehow not alien even though it was unfamiliar. There
were noises outside in the night. Grunting sounds. Snortings. There were
such sounds as a vast concourse of grazing creatures would make in the
night-time, when gathered by thousands and myriads for safety and for
rest.

"He--went out," said Alicia desperately. "He meant to punish us. He's a
spoiled little boy. We weren't nice to him. And--he was afraid of us
too! So he ran away to make us sorry!"

Cochrane went to look out of the lock and to call Johnny Simms back. He
gazed into absolute blackness on the ground. He felt a queasy giddiness
because there was no hand-railing at the outer lock door and he knew the
depth of the fall outside. He raged, within himself. Johnny Simms would
feel triumphant when he was called. He would require to be pleaded with
to return. He would pompously set terms for returning before he was
killed....

Cochrane saw a flash of fire and the short streak of a tracer-bullet's
patch before it hit something. He heard the report of the gun. He heard
a bellow of agony and then a scream of purest terror from Johnny Simms.

Then, from the groun