"Why not?" Garth snapped venomously. His lips were tight and his face was pale beneath his helmet. He was remembering again, with all the old bitterness, the exceedingly unethical ruse by which he'd been captured in the spaceways many years ago--the ruse engineered by Chiswell himself. "Why shouldn't it be him?" he went on. "The survival of the fittest, remember? Look at that ray-gun!" For a moment Prokle was uncomprehending; then he said in a rush of fierce words: "Hype, I'll bet you're right! Of course, you're right! The survival of the fittest, and with that gun old Chiswell _was_ the fittest. I'll bet you he murdered the others and kept all the provisions of that life-boat for himself! There's no other way he could have subsisted here so long." Garth nodded grimly. "Maybe. Some of 'em may have been lost in space somewhere, though. We've no proof of murder yet; but I know he's capable of it if it means his own hide." "Sure, I know that, too. Look at the two pot shots he took at me! We've got a maniac on our hands, Hype, what'll we do now?" "For one thing, he hasn't a helmet. I'm gonna get out of this damned uncomfortable head-gear." Cautiously Garth unscrewed the helmet at his neck; lifted it slightly, and sniffed the air. Then he threw it back, where it dangled from his shoulders. "Don't breathe too deeply," he warned Prokle who followed his example. Garth reached into a rocky cleft near by and brought out a handful of greenish, lichen-like growth. "See there? That's the stuff I told you sometimes grows on these big rocks. Maybe it's what he's burning down there. He could dry it out if the sun hits down this far. All right, I'm going to call to him now, so watch out for that ray-gun." With that, Garth peered down and called loudly: "Chiswell! J. P. Chiswell!" * * * * * Through that thin air his voice rang clear as a bell of doom; echoed eerily between rocky walls and went shivering away into the black distance. The man below at the fire was on his feet and facing them with a fierce snarl. His hand darted up and a ray flashed toward the voice, to splutter harmlessly on the rock some distance from where the men stood in darkness. That act alone proved to them he was mad; from where they stood they could have rayed him with ease. But they didn't need that mad act as proof of the man's madness. For in the full glare of the fire his face was a fierce caricature. Even from their distance they could see the wild gleam of his eyes as he leaned tautly forward trying to pierce the dark; could see the gaunt face, beak-like nose, shaggy brows and tangled growth of beard; they could see the flick of his tongue over lips drawn tight, and could hear the animal snarl that rumbled warningly out of that throat. There in the red glare of fire-light he was a demon out of Hell.