Ron Crag darted out into the earthlight again, and fled for the nearest shadow a hundred feet away. He ducked into the blackness only split seconds ahead of another bolt of flame. If Braun only nicked his suit, his oxygen tank, or his thermocubes it would finish him, and the gunman was getting his range. Joe Braun was out in the light now, dashing for the shadow of a spire nearer Crag's catatread. Ron Crag raised his gun and pressed the trip; a bolt of flame cleaved space just behind the hurtling shape. A disappointed oath ricocheted about the close walls of Crag's helmet. He quickly pressed the charge poles of the gun against the battery posts in his accessory belt and recharged the gun. He then turned the range dial to seventy-five yards, leaving the bolt diameter at one inch. He crouched in the shadow, peering across the intervening area between himself and his assailant. "Missed, son!" Joe Braun guffawed. "Want to make it to your catatread, eh? Well, two can play the same game." Crag swallowed an angry retort. Despair was again rising in him like a dense fog. * * * * * Joe Braun darted for another shadow, drawing ever closer to Crag's vehicle. Crag took careful aim, but his hand wavered ever so slightly. He fired. A streak of flame reached out and nicked--no, it passed just to the rear of the fleeing man, a little above hip level. He could have sworn the bolt grazed the man's accessory belt, but no apparent damage was done. The huge man kept running and ducked into another shadow nearer the catatread. If Joe Braun made it safely to the machine he could turn the young prospector's gun on its owner and burn him down without effort. The next shadow in the chain was only twenty yards away. Crag covered the distance in three strides. Another bolt blasted space between his head and right shoulder. He snapped a bolt back in retaliation. It cut high and to the left. Crag glanced frantically at the catatread. It was still too far away to reach in one dash. He knew he could never make it unless he hugged the shadows as he had been doing. Several space moths still clung hungrily to the cooling engine of the machine, but many of them were flopping and writhing frantically in space above the machine. They had detected the violent heat from the flame guns in the instant before their heat was dissipated into space, but that split second was not long enough for the creatures to locate the origin of the heat. They seemed frustrated, flopping desperately about in confused circles. Some of them fluttered into the shadows of the rocks and spires in their search, and their vaguely radiant network of veins squirmed like purple wraiths in the Stygian blackness.