irst shot. The second man
happily planned to get to a point where he could shoot him like a fish
in a barrel. The third man had fired half a dozen times and then
disappeared. Calhoun estimated that he intended to get around to the
rear, in hope there was no protection from that direction for Calhoun.
It would take some time for him to manage it.

So Calhoun industriously concentrated his fire on the man trying to get
above him. He was behind a boulder, not too dissimilar to Calhoun's
breastwork. Calhoun set fire to the brush at the point at which the
other man aimed. That, then, made his effort useless. Then Calhoun sent
a dozen bolts at the other man's rocky shield. It heated up. Steam rose
in a whitish mass and blew directly away from Calhoun. He saw that
antagonist flee. He saw him so clearly that he was positive that there
was a patch of blue pigment on the right-hand side of the back of his
neck.

He grunted and swung to find the third. That man moved through thick
undergrowth, and Calhoun set it on fire in a neat pattern of spreading
flames. Evidently, these men had had no training in battle-tactics with
blast-rifles. The third man also had to get away. He did. But something
from him arched through the smoke. It fell to the ground directly upwind
from Calhoun. White smoke puffed up violently.

It was instinct that made Calhoun react as he did. He jerked the girl
Maril to her feet and rushed her toward the Med Ship. Smoke from the
flung bomb upwind barely swirled around him and missed Maril altogether.
Calhoun, though, got a whiff of something strange, not scorched or
burning vegetation at all. He ceased to breathe and plunged onward. In
clear air he emptied his lungs and refilled them. They were then halfway
to the ship, with Murgatroyd prancing on ahead.

But then Calhoun's heart began to pound furiously. His muscles twitched
and tense. He felt extraordinary symptoms like an extreme of agitation.
Calhoun was familiar enough with tear-gas, used by police on some
planets. But this was different and worse. Even as he helped and urged
Maril onward, he automatically considered his sensations, and had it.
Panic gas! Police did not use it because panic is worse than rioting.
Calhoun felt all the physical symptoms of fear and of gibbering terror.
A man whose mind yields to terror experiences certain physical
sensations, wildly beating heart, tensed and twitching muscles, and a
frantic impulse to convulsive action. A