Slowly he climbed to his feet and stood looking about him. He was still on the narrow arm of the Strip. On either side of him banks of white clouds, with the consistency of thick smoke, billowed and curled about the Strip—but somehow they left its pathway clear.
Johnson shook his head. The wrongness, he guessed, was in his own mind. But he was unable to determine what it was. Desperately he marshalled his scattered thoughts. Nothing. He took one groping step in the direction from which he had come—and staggered back from a wall of pain as tangible as a concrete structure.
He had no choice except to go forward. There was something he must do, he realized, but what was it? With the question came the answer to what was troubling him.
His memory was gone!
Or, at least, a great gap had been torn through it as though carved out by a giant blade. Briefly, despair threatened to overwhelm him.
"Hold it!" Johnson spoke aloud, and the words sobered him.
All fears became worse when not looked at. He had to bring this disaster out into the open where he could face it; where he could assay the damage. He had always taken pride in having a logical mind, with thought processes as clear and orderly as a bookkeeper's ledger. Closing his eyes, he went swiftly over his recollections, placing each in its appropriate column.
When he finished he found the balance extremely unfavorable, but not hopeless. On the asset side he remembered: His name. Donald Johnson. Right now he was on Nature's Moebius Strip, on the planet, Marlock. There was some man he had been following.... The rest was on the liability side of his balance sheet.
