burning my eyes out in one flash. Don’t tell me!”

“All right. I won’t. But this is a completely new type of atomic blast. It isn’t uranium. It’s a controlled chain reaction based on an artificial element—there must be new types of radiation involved.”

“Fine. The next time there’s a war, we can blind everybody.” Gresham laughed grimly. “I’ll be sorry for myself for a few months, probably. Then I’ll get a Seeing-Eye dog and become a useful member of society again. Huh!” He paused. When he spoke again his voice was different, doubtful, as if he didn’t quite realize he spoke aloud. “Or maybe not,” he said. “Maybe I’ll never be—useful—any more. Maybe I’m not just imagining....”

“Imagining?” Black said, interested. “What?”

Gresham jerked his bandaged face away.

“Nothing!” he declared sharply. “Forget it.”

Black shrugged. “Tell me about yourself, Gresham,” he suggested. “We haven’t had much time yet to get acquainted. How did you happen to be out here just now?”

Gresham shook his head irritably. “Just at the wrong spot and the wrong time? Maybe it was meant that way from the start. Predestination—how do I know? Oh, I had enough after the war. I bummed around the islands. I—like the sea.” His voice softened. “Like isn’t strong enough. I love the sea. I can’t stay away from it. There’s a fascination—I signed on here and there as a deck-hand, a stevedore—I didn’t care what. I just wanted to soak myself in the big things. Sun and sea and sky. Well, I can still feel the sun and the wind, and I can hear the water. But I can’t see it.”

There was no real conviction in the way he finished that last sentence. He turned his bandaged eyes a little to Black’s left and his face grew strained, as if he were looking at something far out at sea.

“You know about the radar sonics, don’t you?” the neurologist said.

“Oh, sure. I’ll learn to bounce a radar beam around me and keep from walking into walls. But—” Gresham’s voice died. He seemed to be staring as if through the bandages and his own blindness at something far away. In spite of himself Black turned to follow that blinded stare. And at a great distance off he saw, or thought he saw something in the glare of the sun-track splash water and dive....

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