was running.

He kept on running. Then he stopped as suddenly as he had started. He looked down at his wounded arm. He glanced quickly up and down the corridor, then ducked again in a wall niche where he gave his whole attention to his arm.

Had he dreamed all this? The horrible Martian in the tunnel? The car crash? The color room? He must have dreamed it. The proof was there before him. A smooth, unblemished forearm where there had been a huge bloody bruise but a few moments before! He rubbed the arm—tested it. There was not the faintest sign of a wound.

He looked around in bewilderment, peeked both ways and moved out again into the corridor.

His luck had held for a long time but now it failed him as sudden footsteps sounded in a traversing passage just ahead. They were coming swiftly. Tommy looked around in desperation.

This appeared to be the end but it was not. Fate seemed indeed to be toying with him—moving him around like a mobile chessman. At the last moment it showed him a doorway he had overlooked. The door was unlocked and he went through it as fast as he could while still closing it softly behind him.

Inside, the light was very dim. Tommy listened at the door as the sound of footsteps diminished. He smiled—quite proud of his ability to take care of himself under these circumstances. He would certainly have a lot to put in his diary when he got home.

If he got home.

Tommy drove this last thought from his mind. He would make it. He was doing all right. Whereupon fate slapped him and sharply for his conceit by turning him and dropping him down a flight of stairs he'd been too busy watching the door to notice.

The fall hurt but Tommy was no longer frightened. He knew that so long as he had survived the car crash no violence of this type could even dent him.

He got to his feet and danced around for a while, holding a barked shin, then straightened as a new sound smote his ears. Someone was sobbing.

A woman. A woman crying.

It did not take Tommy long to trace the sound. He was in a narrower, lower corridor now; one not as fine as the big one upstairs. As Tommy moved forward, the sobbing told him he was going in the right direction. He opened a door.

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