Simple Simon followed. He moved like an automaton, functioning with awkward, methodical slowness. His hands, speckled with reflected light, rose up out of the darkness. Ben stepped back, wiped the dust from his clouded face-plate. One swoop of those hands, he knew, could shatter his helmet, destroy his oxygen supply, leave him choking on deadly methane and carbon dioxide. But, so far, Simon seemed bent on capture, not destruction. That fact gave Ben a second advantage. Scaly fingers, moving now with greater swiftness, closed over the shoulder of his suit. Ben felt himself being pulled forward, a child in the grasp of a giant. His brief surge of confidence vanished. Cold terror swept upon him. He lashed out wildly. His right fist found his target, found it so well that the skin split on his gloved knuckles. Simon's head snapped back. The grasping fingers slipped from Ben's suit. But still the Venusian lumbered ahead, an irresistible juggernaut, the hands continually groping. Ben ducked and slipped aside. The can of vita-rations was ripped from his back. He crouched low, fighting the wind, maneuvering for another blow. His lungs ached, but he had no opportunity to increase his helmet's oxygen flow. His weak leg muscles were beginning to pain as though with needles of fire. * * * * * The hands crashed down upon his shoulders. This time, his fist found Simon's stomach. The creature released a grunt audible above the howling of wind. His body doubled up. Ben struck again and again. His lungs throbbed as if they'd break through his chest. A fresh layer of dust coated his face-plate, nearly blinding him. He fought instinctively, gauntleted fists battering. Simple Simon fell. Ben brushed away the dust from his face-plate, turned up his helmet's oxygen valve. Then he knelt by the fallen creature. A new fear came to Ben Curtis--a fear almost as great as that of being caught in Simon's crushing grip. It was the fear that he had killed again. But even in the near-darkness, he could distinguish the labored rise and fall of the massive chest. _Thank God_, he thought. From the direction of Jacob's ship, a flash of light caught his eye. The black shapes of helmeted men were becoming larger, nearer. Ben tensed. The spacemen couldn't have heard sounds of the struggle, but they _might_ have noticed movement. Puffing, Ben plunged into the darkness to his left, slowing only long enough to consult the dial of his compass. "Sixty-eight degrees," he breathed. The compass dial was now his only companion and his only hope. It was the one bit of reality in a world of black, screaming nightmare. * * * * * At first Ben Curtis fought the wind and the dust and the night. His fists were clenched as they had been while struggling with Simon. Each step forward was a challenge, a struggle and--so far, at any rate--a victory.