ss against the attack
which he knew was inevitable.

How much had he lost? How close had they come while he slept?

Fearfully, he walked to the window, peered out, and felt his muscles
relax a little. The gray, foggy streets were still light. He still had a
little time before the terrible night began.

He stumbled across the small, old-fashioned room, sensing that action of
some sort was desperately needed. The bathroom was tiny; he stared in
the battered, stained reflector unit, shocked at the red-eyed
stubble-faced apparition that stared back at him.

This is Harry Scott, he thought, thirty-two years old, and in the prime
of life, but not the same Harry Scott who started out on a ridiculous
quest so many months ago. This Harry Scott was being hunted like an
animal, driven by fear, helpless, and sure to die, unless he could find
an escape, somehow. But there were too many of them for him to escape,
and they were too clever, and they _knew_ he knew too much.

He stepped into the shower-shave unit, trying to relax, to collect his
racing thoughts. Above all, he tried to stay the fear that burned
through his mind, driving him to panic and desperation. The memory of
the last hellish night was too stark to allow relaxation--the growing
fear, the silent, desperate hunt through the night; the realization that
their numbers were increasing; his frantic search for a hiding place in
the New City; and finally his panic-stricken, pell-mell flight down into
the alleys and cobbled streets and crumbling frame buildings of the Old
City.... Even more horrible, the friends who had turned on him, who
turned out to be _like_ them.

Back in the bedroom, he lay down again, his body still tense. There were
sounds in the building, footsteps moving around on the floor overhead, a
door banging somewhere. With every sound, every breath of noise, his
muscles tightened still further, freezing him in fear. His own breath
was shallow and rapid in his ears as he lay, listening, waiting.

If only something would happen! He wanted to scream, to bang his head
against the wall, to run about the room smashing his fist into doors,
breaking every piece of furniture. It was the _waiting_, the eternal
waiting, and running, waiting some more, feeling the net drawing tighter
and tighter as he waited, feeling the measured, unhurried tread behind
him, always following, coming closer and closer, as though he were a
mouse on a string, twisting and jerking hel