Before him stretched a plateau, rock-strewn and sand-swept. Beyond it, the topmost peak of the range towered to challenge the pale tetrarchian sun. Rod checked his air supply. There was just enough to get him across the plateau.
He examined the heating element in his suit more carefully and probed an exploratory finger across the pocket over his short ribs. The package was still there. The gash under his arm was bothering him again. Well and good! Maybe there would be a chance for it to heal properly if he ever won through.
He started across the plateau at a fast trot.
He glanced back at first. But after an hour’s steady progress there was no need to. He knew the flames were gaining on him. His breathing was thick and labored. The air gauge in his suit was oscillating at zero. As he slowed the pursuing flames speeded forward. One shot ahead of the rest and circled over him like a gleam-buzzard. It watched him stagger while it poised motionless. Then it swooped.
It darted toward him. He paused and swung an almost drunken punch at it. His fist went through it and he recoiled, stricken at the terrific shock that traveled along his arm. The flame retreated sullenly to continue circling.
He drew a deep breath and held it. The peak wavered before him. It was close now. His head throbbed and the gash in his arm had opened. Warm blood was seeping through his sleeve. His leaden feet refused to go further. He fell to his knees and crawled toward the base of the peak. Sobbing, each breath a burning hell, he worked his way over the last few yards. He reached the rocky slope and scrambled up crabwise until he collapsed.
The hovering flames paused. They reached glowing tentacles toward him while he ripped frantically at his cloying, confining space suit.
He rolled over on his back when the fastenings gave way. The flames huddled closer in the intense cold of the upper slope when Rod shorted the heating element. It glowed white while he ripped his pocket in a desperate search for red dust—red oxide from the gryxon mines.
His face was blue when he dropped the dust on the white hot heat coil. The red dust changed to gleaming droplets of mercury. Oxygen—rich pure oxygen was released in the change. He breathed the life-giving fumes through pinched nostrils.
When strength came pouring back into his air-starved system he advanced on the weakened flames. They hugged the rocks—inert in the savage cold of the mountain. Some of them had changed to glowing liquid. One, higher on the slope than the rest, had frozen to an opalescent solid. When the newly generated oxygen flowed over them they exploded harmlessly to grey powder. As the last one disappeared Rod turned to face a grinning, space-clad figure.