le itself was intact.

Something strange caught his attention. Wherever the intruder had put
his foot down, there were many radiating cracks in the composition
floor, just as though someone had struck a sheet of ice with a sledge
hammer.

"I'll be danged," he said to himself. "I'll be danged and double
danged."

He turned off the alarm and then went downstairs to the teledepth screen
to notify the sheriff's office.

A few hundred yards from the powerhouse, Jon Hall stood in the darkness,
listening to the voices of his fellows. There were eighteen of them, not
seventeen, for a short while before the one in the ice cave had been
captured, and they railed at him with a bitter hopeless anger.

He looked toward the bright lights of the powerhouse, considering
whether he should return. "It's too late," said one of them. "The alarm
is already out." "Go into the town and mix with the people," another
suggested. "If you stay within a half mile of the hafnium pile, the
detection man will not be able to pick up your radiation and maybe you
will have a second chance."

They all assented in that, and Hall, weary of making his own decisions
turned toward the town. He walked through a tree-lined residential
street, the houses with neatly trimmed lawns, and each with a copter
parked on the roof. In almost every house the teledepths were turned on
and he caught snatches of bulletins about himself: "... Is known to be
in the Mojave area." "... About six feet in height and very similar to a
human being. When last seen, he was dressed in--" "Governor Leibowitz
has promised speedy action and attorney general Markle has stated--"

The main street of Ballarat was brilliantly lighted. Many of the
residents, aroused by the alarm from the powerhouse, were out, standing
in small groups in front of the stores and talking excitedly to one
another.

He hesitated, unwilling to walk through the bright street, but uncertain
where to turn. Two men talking loudly came around the corner suddenly
and he stepped back into a store entrance to avoid them. They stopped
directly in front of him. One of them, an overalled farm hand from his
looks, said, "He killed a kid just a little while ago. My brother-in-law
heard it."

"Murderer," the other said viciously.

The farmer turned his head and his glance fell on Hall. "Well, a new
face in town," he said after a moment's inspection. "Say I bet you're a
reporter from one of the papers, aren't you?"