the edge. Night was sweeping in. The island
was a wall of blackness and the men at its foot were hidden. "You
can't _see_!" she protested.

He squeezed her shoulder. "Oh yes I can, honey. But whether I'm a good
enough shot to.... We'll have to try it, that's all."

Her face was a white blur and fear of the unknown put metal in her
voice. "Part seal, part cat, part deer, part what else? I don't think
you're human, Simon Dalgetty."

He didn't answer. The abnormal voluntary dilation of pupils hurt his
eyes.

"What else has Dr. Tighe done?" Her tone was chill in the dark. "You
can't study the human mind without studying the body too. What's he
done? Are you the mutant they're always speculating about? Did Dr.
Tighe create or find homo superior?"

"If I don't plug that radio com-set before they can use it," he said,
"I'll be homo-genized."

"You can't laugh it off," she said through taut lips. "If you aren't
of our species I have to assume you're our enemy--till you prove
otherwise!" Her fingers closed hard on his arm. "Is that what your
little gang at the Institute is doing? Have they decided that mere
humanity isn't good enough to be civilized? Are they preparing the way
for your kind to take over?"

"Listen," he said wearily. "Right now we're two people, very mortal
indeed, being hunted. So shut up!"

He took the pistol from her holster and slipped a full clip into its
magazine. His vision was at high sensitivity now, her face showed
white against the wet rock with gray highlights along its strong
cheekbones beneath the wide frightened eyes. Beyond the reefs the sea
was gunmetal under the stars, streaked with foam and shadow.

Ahead of him, as he rose to his feet, the line of guards stood out as
paler darknesses against the vertiginous island face. They had mounted
a heavy machine-gun to point seaward and a self-powered spotlight,
not turned on, rested nearby. Those two things could be dangerous but
first he had to find the radio set that could call the whole garrison
down on them.

_There!_ It was a small hump on the back of one man, near the middle
of the beach. He was pacing restlessly up and down with a tommy-gun in
his hands. Dalgetty raised the pistol with slow hard-held
concentration, wishing it were a rifle. _Remember your target practice
now, arm loose, fingers extended, don't pull the trigger but
squeeze--because you've got to be right the first time!_

He shot. The weapon was a military model, s