most horrible thing of all.

Fallon licked the cold sweat from his lips. "No," he said.

"Turn back, or you will be killed."

"It doesn't matter," whispered Fallon. "I've got to try."

Bjarnsson laughed. Fallon could see his diaphragm contract in a surge of flame, see the ripple of the laughter.

A wave of anger cut across Fallon's terror, cold and sane.

"I did this to you, Bjarnsson," he said. "I'm trying to make up for it. I thought you were dead. Perhaps, if you put your armor back on, we can patch it up somehow, and it may not be too late."

"But it is too late. So, you blame yourself, eh?"

"I left my post. Otherwise, you might have dodged that thing."

"Dodged it?" Tiny sparkles of light shot through Bjarnsson's brain. "Oh, ja. Perhaps." And he laughed again. "So you will not turn back? Not even for the beautiful Joan?"

Fallon's eyes closed, but the lines of his jaw were stern with anger. "Do you have to torture me?"

"Wait," said Bjarnsson. "Wait a little. Then I will know."

His voice was suddenly strange. Fallon opened his eyes. The glowing fire in the explorer's body was growing brighter, so that it blurred the lines of vein and bone and sinew.

"No," said Bjarnsson. "No need for torture. Turn back, Fallon."

God, how he wanted to! "No," he whispered. "I've got to try."

Bjarnsson's voice came to him, almost as an echo.

"We were fools, Fallon. Fools to think that we could stop this thing with a single puny bomb. Kashimo was a fool, too, but he was a gambler. But we, Fallon, you and I—we were the bigger fools."

"The kind of fools," said Fallon doggedly, "that men have always been. And damn it, I think I'd rather be the fool I am than the smart guy I was!"

Bjarnsson's laughter echoed in his helmet. Fallon had a 

 Prev. P 26/28 next