He was becoming rapidly very tired. If he did not want to have to walk all the way out of the desert, he would have to stay right here. Boy, he said to himself painfully, wearily, you got big trouble. He sat down to brood, too tired to remind himself that he had volunteered for this business. In a few moments he was deeply asleep. * * * * * When he awoke it was dark and quite cool and the stars were out. He was instantly alert, peering off into the blackness, listening for the rescue trucks. He crawled out from the rocks and stood up, peered off into the night. There was no moon, but off in what would be the east was the first bluish glow of the rising sun. That told him at least how long he had slept, and he kicked himself. It was somewhere between four and five in the morning. The truck would have been here long ago. He walked away from the rocks, looking for a high point on which to stand. They wouldn't have gone away, damn it, they'd have enough sense to stay and look around. Although if they thought he had been in the pod.... Holy smoke, he said with a sad despair, I've got to walk home. He hadn't eaten for a day and a half. He hadn't had anything to drink either, or even a cigarette. He was beginning to feel it. He made his way up through the rocks to a high, flat bulge, stretched himself up and peered out hopefully. The trucks rose up about a mile away. Three black hulks, vague and square and unmoving. Web shouted out hoarsely, with relief and delight. He stumbled back down the rocks in the darkness, reached the soft sand and began to run like a sprinter. They'd waited, bless 'em. The sound of a human voice would be, at this moment, magnificent. He could taste the hot coffee as he ran, the steaming hot coffee and the rolls. They were probably all around him, searching. He shouted. Nobody answered. It was becoming light quite quickly and although the ground was still dark the silhouettes of the trucks stood out black and clear as he came over the last rise. He stopped in his tracks, kicking up sand. The trucks were wrecked. He crouched tensely, feeling for a gun that wasn't there. Nothing moved in the blackness around him. The trucks were all black and empty. After a moment of waiting in the deep silence he moved forward slowly. The first truck had crashed head on into a flat rock wall. The second lay on its side in a steep ditch to the right of the road. The third lay right behind it. The only one that was apparently untouched was the halftrack. It was standing alone halfway up a sand hill to the south, its nose pointed up at a sharp angle. All of the trucks were empty. But in the half light he couldn't be sure. He walked up to the halftrack, looking for the bodies. There weren't any. When he had looked around for a few moments, he realized what had happened. The men had all disappeared.