Rick gasped. He glanced around and then cursed. At once he had thought of Fane. Fane had been present moments ago. Now he was gone. Somehow Rick wished mightily that he had not lost sight of him for an instant. "There goes Fane!" Rick yelled, pointing. But while others took up the cry, Rick spied a piece of white notepaper at his feet. He picked it up and read: "I'll drop this where you'll find it, Mills. So long. Thanks for the interest in me. It's flattering. I feel something is going to happen. I'm a lone wolf, unused to schoolbook greenhorns. I'm playing it single, and taking French leave. It's safer. I know you're supposed to go with a bunch into the dark hemisphere. Maybe I'll see you--if you live. Fane...." Others read the note over Rick's shoulders. And other voices expressed some of Rick's scattered thoughts. "Damn Fane! Something screwy about him. I always knew...." "Sure! What's he trying to pull? What does he know about Mercury that he never told? Running out on us, now, huh? Six months he spent here once. Bet he did kill Martell and Jacobs! What is he after now? And what has he found out about the war machines that must be here?..." "Easy, guys. No wolf-pack talk...." "Easy--hell! If he didn't know his way around he'd never be wandering off like that on foot! His running off means no good...." Then someone raised a long-range blaster. But before it could be fired at the dodging and elusive Fane, Nostrand struck the weapon down. The runaway had already reached the darkward foothills. "It's no use trying to stop him now," Nostrand said. "Fane--do you hear me?" Rick called, his helmet radiophone giving his voice the needed range. "Tell me, what's the pitch?" Rick heard Fane's derisive and harsh laugh. "I told you, didn't I, smart boy Mills?" he taunted. "Or are you all stupid?" The laugh and the words revealed more of Fane's nature to Rick than he'd ever seen before. The ego, the vanity, flaunted now because of some hidden advantage. Doubtless it salved an inferiority. Rick would have liked to like Fane. But now that big lanky man, for all his show of competence, was like a poisonous child. Rick felt an amused smirk coming out on his own face in spite of his sense of the presence of masked danger. "Somebody has got the idea that he's super, Fane," he chuckled. "I wonder how that old, tiresome thing happened to you. Maybe you had a bitter, frustrated youth. Kids beat you up, hunh? So now you're the bigshot who makes monkeys out of everybody. Well, go play your marbles...." Final response was only another harsh laugh. For secrecy, Rick now cut off his radio, and established a sound-channel for his voice by grasping Nostrand's shoulder. "We've got to follow him, Chief. See what he's up to," he said. Nostrand nodded, and beckoned Schmidt, who was supposed to lead the pre-planned party into the dark hemisphere, to come closer. Nostrand spoke softly, with his phone also shut off: