Mr. Yardo thoughtfully. He turns to me with sudden
briskness. "What's that, Lizzie girl? A fish-boat? Good. We may need
it. Let's have a look."

"It's mine," I tell him.

"Now look--"

"Tailor made," I say. "You might get into it, though I doubt it. You
couldn't work the controls."

It takes him fifteen seconds to realize there is no way round it; he
is six foot three and I am five foot one. Even B would find it hard.

His face goes grayish and he stares at me helplessly. Finally he nods.

"All right, Lizzie. I guess we have to try it. Things certainly can't
be much worse than they are. We'll go over to the beach there."

On the beach there is wind and spray and breakers but nothing
unmanageable; the cliffs on either side keep off the worst of the
force. It is queer to feel moving air after eighteen days in a ship.
It takes six minutes to unpack and expand the boat and by that time it
is ten minutes since the missile hit and the Andite has not blown.

I crawl into the boat. In my protective clothing it is a fairly tight
fit. We agree that I will return to this same point and they will
start looking for me in fifty minutes' time and will give up if I have
not returned in two hours. I take two Andite cartridges to deal with
all eventualities and snap the nose of the boat into place. At first I
am very conscious of the two little white cigars in the pouch of my
suit, but presently I have other things to think about.

I use the "limbs" to crawl the last few yards of shingle into the
water and on across the sea bottom till I am beyond the line of
breakers; then I turn on the motor. I have already set the controls to
"home" on _Gilgamesh_ and the radar will steer me off any
obstructions. This journey in the dark is as safe as my trip around
the reefs before all this started--though it doesn't feel that way.

It takes twelve minutes to reach _Gilgamesh_, or rather the fragment
that antigrav is supporting; it is about half a mile from the beach.

The radar stops me six feet from her and I switch it off and turn to
Manual and inch closer in.

Lights, a very small close beam. The missile struck her about one
third of her length behind the nose. I know, because I can see the
whole of that length. It is hanging just above the water, sloping at
about 30 deg. to the horizontal. The ragged edge where it was torn from
the rest is just dipping into the sea.

If anyone sees this, I don't know what they will make of it but