r which he had been
heading. He dragged himself in and sat down, as comfortably as possible.
He began to wait.

* * * * *

Dawn came in less than three hours, as Fomalhaut burst up over the
horizon and exploded in radiance over the valley. With dawn came a
patrol of men, slinking surreptitiously across the valley, probably with
orders to bring him in. Wayne was ensconced comfortably in his little
rock niche, hidden from the men in the valley below, but with a perfect
view of everything that went on. The wind whistled around the cliffs,
ceaselessly moaning a tuneless song. He felt like standing up and
shouting wildly, "Here I am! Here I am!" but he repressed the perverse
urge.

The patrol group stood in a small clump in the valley below, seemingly
waiting for something. Moments passed, and then it became apparent what
that something was. Hollingwood, the metallurgist, appeared, dragging
with him the detector. They were going to look for Captain Wayne with
it, just as they had searched out the double-nucleus beryllium.

Wayne frowned. It was a possibility he hadn't thought about. They could
easily detect the metal in his boots! And he didn't dare take them off;
he'd never make it back across that hellish stretch of sand without
them. He glanced uneasily at his watch. _How much longer do I have to
keep evading them?_ he wondered. It was a wearing task.

It looked as though it would be much too long.

The muzzle of the detector began to swing back and forth slowly and
precisely, covering the valley inch by inch. He heard their whispered
consultations drifting up from below, though he couldn't make out what
they were saying.

* * * * *

They finished with the valley, evidently concluding he wasn't there, and
started searching the walls. Wayne decided it was time to get out while
the getting was good. He crawled slowly out of the niche and wriggled
along the escarpment, heading south, keeping low so the men in the
valley wouldn't see him.

Unfortunately, he couldn't see them either. He kept moving, hoping they
wouldn't spot him with the detector. He wished he had the metamagnetic
hand grapples with him. For one thing, the sharp rock outcroppings
sliced his hands like so much meat. For another, he could have dropped
the grapples somewhere as a decoy.

_Oh, well, you can't think of everything_, Wayne told himself. He
glanced at his watch. How long was it