He knew that the Sun-child had picked his unwitting brain as cleanly as any Hiltonist psycho-search. In sudden desperation he drew his blaster and shot at the mocking likeness. Before he tripped the trigger-stud a wall of ebon glass was raised between them. The blast-ray slid away in harmless fire and died, burned out. The other Falken turned and strode away across the new land. Falken watched him out of sight, not moving nor speaking, because there was nothing to do, nothing to say. The lovely wicked fire of the Sun-child faded suddenly. "I am tired," it said. "I shall suckle the Sun, and rest." It floated away. For all his agony, Falken felt the heart-stab of its sad, dim colors. It faded like a wisp of lonely smoke into the splintered light. Presently there was a blinding flash and a sharp surge of air as a fissure was opened. Falken saw the creature, far away, pressed to the roof of the vault and pulsing as it drank the raw blaze of the Sun. "Oh, God," whispered Falken. "Oh, God, what have I done?" Falken laughed, one harsh wild cry. Then he stood quite still, his hands at his sides, his face a mask cut deep in dark stone. "Eric," whispered Sheila. "Please. I can't be brave for you all the time." He was ashamed of himself then. He shook the black despair away with cynical fatalism. "All right, Sheila. We'll be heroes to the bitter end. You, Avery. Get your great brain working. How can we save our people, and, incidentally, our own skins?" Avery flinched as though some swift fear had stabbed him. "Don't ask me, Falken. Don't!" "Why not? What the devil's the matter...." Falken broke off sharply. Something cold and fierce and terrifying came into his face. "Just a minute, Avery," he said gently. "Does that mean you think you know a way?" "I.... For God's sake, let me alone!" "You do know a way," said Falken inexorably. "Why shouldn't I ask you, Paul Avery? Why shouldn't you try to save your people?" Golden eyes met his, desperate, defiant, bewildered, and pitiful all at once. "They're not my people," whispered Avery. They were caught, then, in a strange silence. Soundless wheeling rainbows brushed the new earth, glimmered in the brassy pools. Far up on the black crystal of the vault the Sun-child pulsed and breathed. And there was stillness, like the morning of creation. Eric Falken took one slow, taut step, and said, "Who are you?" The answer whispered across the raw red earth. "Miner Hilton, the son of Gantry." * * * * * Falken raised the blaster, forgotten in his hand. Miner Hilton, who had been Paul Avery, looked at it and then at Falken's face, a shield of dark iron over cold, terrible flame. He shivered, but he didn't move, nor speak. "You know a way to fight that thing," said Falken, very softly, in his throat. "I want to kill you. But you know a way." "I--I don't know. I can't...." Golden tortured eyes went to Sheila Moore and stayed there, with a dreadful lost intensity.