eam blindly before him, hoping to hit
the unseen by chance.

A shadow--something more swift than a shadow, more than one of the
tricks the curling fog played on eyes--was moving with purpose and
straight for him. Still, prudence restrained Shann from calling out.

The figure grew clearer. A Terran! It could be Thorvald! But remembering
how they had last parted, Shann did not hurry to meet him.

That shadow-shape stretched out a long arm in a sweep as if to pull
aside some of the vapor concealing them from each other. Then Shann
shivered as if that fog had suddenly turned into the drive of frigid
snow. For the mist did roll back so that the two of them stood in an
irregular clearing in its midst.

And he did not front Thorvald.

Shann was caught up in the ice grip of an old fear, frozen by it, but
somehow clinging to a hope that he did not see the unbelievable.

Those hands drawing the lash of a whip back into striking readiness ...
a brutal nose broken askew, a blaster burn puckering across cheek to
misshapen ear ... that, evil, gloating grin of anticipation. Flick,
flick, the slight dance of the lash in a master's hand as those thick
fingers tightened about the stock of the whip. In a moment it would
whirl up to lay a ribbon of fire about Shann's defenceless shoulders.
Then Logally would laugh and laugh, his sadistic mirth echoed by those
other men who played jackals to his rogue lion.

Other men.... Shann shook his head dazedly. But he did not stand again
in the Dump-size bar of the Big Strike. And he was no longer a
terrorized youngster, fit meat for Logally's amusement. Only the whip
rose, the lash curled out, catching Shann just as it had that time years
ago, delivering a red slash of pure agony. But Logally was dead, Shann's
mind screamed, fighting frantically against the evidence of his eyes, of
that pain in his chest and shoulder. The Dump bully had been spaced by
off-world miners, now also dead, whose claims he had tried to jump out
in the Ajax system.

Logally drew back the lash, preparing to strike again. Shann faced a man
five years dead who walked and fought. Or, Shann bit hard upon his lower
lip, holding desperately to sane reasoning--did he indeed face anything?
Logally was the ancient devil of his boyhood produced anew by the
witchery of Warlock. Or had Shann himself been led to recreate both the
man and the circumstances of their first meeting with fear as a weapon
to pull the creator down? Dre