Nolan shivered, and absently turned up the heat control of his suit. He felt suddenly hopeless. One man against--what? His thoughts, unbidden, reverted to the girl he had left in Avalon, and to the sordid fear that she might be what she seemed. Nolan's cheek muscles drew tight, and his face hardened. Woller, partly protected by his heat suit, undoubtedly had lived through the instant inferno when the pyro charge went off. That was one more thing against him--the girl. Nolan sighed. And a faint reverberation on the soles of his feet brought him stark upright, staring frantically over the sheltering mound of ice. A skid was racing down on him. Before he could move its light flared out, spotted him. And a tiny voice within his helmet said, "Don't move, Nolan. You can't get away now. You'll die if you try. Next time you play hide-and-seek with me, Nolan--don't leave your helmet radio on!" * * * * * If Woller had burned with rage before, now he was frozen. He was a blind man there before Nolan, his eyes swathed in thick white bandages. But the hulking Earthman with the pyro who stood by his side, and lean black Captain Vincennes at the controls, were eyes enough for him. "But I wish I could see you myself," Woller said softly, his fingers drumming idly against the wide fabric arm of his cushioned passenger's chair. "The ship's surgeon says it may be weeks before I see again. If I could afford to keep you alive that long--" He sighed regretfully. "No, I can't afford it," he concluded. "There are more important things, though nothing--" his voice shook but kept its chill calm--"that would give me more pleasure than to see you die." "We could save him, Woller," Vincennes said. "Pickle him in a sleep-box like--" "Be still, Vincennes!" Woller's voice was sharp. "I'll ask for advice when I want it!" A sleep-box--Nolan remembered suddenly what they were. Small coffins, large enough for a man, equipped with an atomic-powered generator that kept the occupant in a sort of half-death, not breathing or able to move, but capable of existing almost indefinitely without food. Nolan wondered absently what they were doing with sleep-boxes, then gave it up. It didn't matter. He cursed the carelessness that had led him to leave the radio on in his suit. It had been simple for the _Dragonfly's_ radio-man to tune in on its carrier wave, get a radio fix on his position. The skid swerved abruptly in a sloppy turn, and the surly earth man at the controls halted it and looked around. "Okay," he grunted. "Here we are." Woller nodded. "Take me out," he ordered. "Nolan, too." Nolan peered out the window. Absorbed in self-recrimination, he hadn't paid attention to their trip. He was surprised to find gleaming metal all around the skid. They were in a heat lock--they had come to the domed settlement.