or the chance of getting away with it, i.e., getting close enough
to grab the gun or hit him with a rock or something, I know I would
become a Stimulus to shooting before I did that but there are always
the clouds, if one will only come back over the moon again.

I have covered half the distance.

Twenty feet from him, and he takes a quick step back.

Turn, kick, out, step. I am swinging round away from him, let's hope
he finds it reassuring. I dare not look up but I think the light is
dimming. Turn, kick, out, step. Boxing the compass. Coming round
again.

And the cloud is coming over the moon, out of the corner of my eye I
see darkness sweeping towards us--and I see his face of sheer horror
as he sees it, too; he jumps back, swings up the weapon, and fires
straight in my face.

And it is dark. So much for Psychology.

There is a clatter and other sounds--

Well, quite a lot for Psychology maybe, because at twenty feet he
seems to have missed me.

* * * * *

I pick myself up and touch something which apparently is his weapon,
gun or whatever. I leave it and hare back to the stretcher, next-to
fall over it but stop just in time, and switch on the antigrav. Up;
level it; now where to? The cliffs enclosing the bay are about thirty
yards off to my left and they offer the only cover.

The shingle is relatively level; I make good time till I stumble
against a rock and nearly lose the stretcher. I step up on to the rock
and see the cliff as a blacker mass in the general darkness, only a
yard away. I edge the stretcher round it.

It is almost snatched out of my hand by a gust of wind. I pull it back
and realize that in the bay I have been sheltered; there is pretty
near half a gale blowing across the face of the cliff.

Voices and footsteps, away back among the rocks where the man came
from.

If the clouds part again they will see me, sure as shooting.

I take a hard grip on the stretcher and scramble round the edge of the
cliff.

After the first gust the wind is not so bad; for the most part it is
trying to press me back into the cliff. The trouble is that I can't
see. I have to shuffle my foot forward, rubbing one shoulder against
the cliff to feel where it is because I have no hand free.

After a few yards I come to an impasse; something more than knee high;
boulder, ridge, I can't tell.

I weigh on the edge of the stretcher and tilt it up to get it over the
obstacle. Wi