Shallow water. Blinded by the steady rain of salt mist, deafened by
the roar and crash of the sea, he groped toward shore. A narrow pebbly
beach ran along the foot of the cliff. He moved along it, hunting a
place to hide.

There--a sea-worn cave, some ten feet inward, with a yard or so of
fairly quiet water covering its bottom. He splashed inside and lay
down, exhaustion clamping a hand on him.

It was noisy. The hollow resonance of sound filled the cave like the
inside of a drum but he didn't notice. He lay on the rocks and sand,
his mind spiraling toward unconsciousness, and let his body make its
own recovery.

Presently he regained awareness and looked about him. The cave was
dim, with only a filtered greenish light to pick out black wall's and
slowly swirling water. Nobody could see much below the surface--good.
He studied himself. Lacerated clothes, bruised flesh and a long
bleeding gash in one side. That was not good. A stain of blood on the
water would give him away like a shout.

Grimacing, he pressed the edges of the wound together and willed that
the bleeding stop. By the time a good enough clot was formed for him
to relax his concentration the guards were scrambling down to find
him. He didn't have many minutes left. Now he had to do the opposite
of energizing. He had to slow metabolism down, ease his heartbeat,
lower his body temperature, dull his racing brain.

He began to move his hands, swaying back and forth, muttering the
autohypnotic formulas. His incantations, Tighe had called them. But
they were only stylized gestures leading to conditioned reflexes deep
in the medulla. _Now I lay me down to sleep_....

Heavy, heavy--his eyelids were drooping; the wet walls receding into a
great darkness, a hand cradling his head. The noise of surf dimmed,
became a rustle, the skirts of the mother he had never known, come in
to bid him goodnight. Coolness stole over him like veils dropping one
by one inside his head. There was winter outside and his bed was snug.

When Dalgetty heard the nearing rattle of boots--just barely through
the ocean and his own drowsiness--he almost forgot what he had to do.
No, yes, now he knew. Take several long, deep breaths, oxygenate the
bloodstream, then fill the lungs once and slide down under the
surface.

He lay there in darkness hardly conscious of the voices, dimly
perceived.

"A cave here--a place for him to hide."

"Nah, I don't see nothing."

Scrunch of feet o