other to find the fuse and stick it over
the Andite. The shortest; three minutes.

I think the valve is still moving--

Then something drops round me; I am hauled tight against the
stretcher; we are pulled strongly downwards with the wind buffeting
and snatching, banged against the edge of something, and pulled
through into silence and the dark.

For a moment I do not understand; then I recognize the feel of Fragile
Cargo, still clamping me to the stretcher, and I open my mouth and
scream and scream.

Clatter of feet. Hatch opens. Fragile Cargo goes limp.

I stagger to my feet. Faint light through the hatch; B's head. I hold
out the Andite stick and she turns and shouts; and a panel slides open
in the wall so that the wind comes roaring in.

I push the stick through and the wind snatches it away and it is gone.

After that--

* * * * *

After that, for a while, nothing, I suppose, though I have no
recollection of losing consciousness; only without any sense of break
I find I am flat on my back on one of the seats in the cabin of the
hopper.

I sit up and say "How--"

B who is sitting on the floor beside me says that when the broadcaster
was activated of course they came at once, only while they were
waiting for the boat to reach land whole squads of land cars arrived
and started combing the area, and some came up on top of the cliff and
shone their headlights out over the sea so Mr. Yardo had to lurk
against the cliff face and wait till I got into a position where he
could pick me up and it was _frightfully_ clever of me to think of
floating up on antigrav--

I forgot about the broadcaster.

I forgot about the hopper come to that, there seemed to be nothing in
the world except me and the stretcher and the enemy.

Stretcher.

I say, "Is M'Clare--"

At which moment Mr. Yardo turns from the controls with a wide smile of
triumph and says "Eighteen twenty-seven, girls!" and the world goes
weightless and swings upside down.

Then still with no sense of any time-lapse I am lying in the big
lighted hold, with the sound of trampling all round: it is somehow
filtered and far off and despite the lights there seems to be a globe
of darkness around my head. I hear my own voice repeating, "M'Clare?
How's M'Clare?"

A voice says distantly, without emphasis, "M'Clare? He's dead."

The next time I come round it is dark. I am vaguely aware of having
been unconscious for quite a w