He walked away, though keeping a prudent watch over his shoulder until he was a hundred meters distant. Even after that, he turned around occasionally. This made it difficult for Quasmin to follow him, but the outlaw managed to be in position to observe Trolla's arrival at his ship.
He spied as the detective recovered his spacesuit and climbed the ladder to the airlock. When there appeared to be no likelihood of his emerging for some time, Quasmin scuttled back to his hut.
"No sense bein' here if he comes lookin' for me with his gun an' shield," he growled to himself. "Maybe I bluffed him, an' maybe I didn't."
He threw together a small bundle of rations and rolled it with a water bottle in a blanket. As he did so, he muttered a stream of curses.
"He's got no right to try anythin'," he reassured himself. "The law says I gotta have a chance at rehabilitation whether I co-operate or not. I didn't make up the law, but I can use it as much as he can. He wouldn't dare overgas me!"
His anger helped him start out at a brisk pace. In less than three hours, he reached an area of rough, cliff-broken hills where there were caves that would take Trolla weeks to check. There he concealed himself for the night.
Sometime during the darkness, a distant rumble awakened him.
Suspiciously, Quasmin poked his head out of the cave in which he had been sleeping. He was just in time to see the flare of rockets in the starry sky.
"He backed down!" was his triumphant conclusion.