I started in a moment, heading along a ridged, fantastic little terrain at the bottom of a shadowed valley. The deflated suit hung in baggy folds upon me; the bulky helmet was folded, hanging down from the back of my neck. Half a mile to where Carson had dropped. Gun in hand I advanced as cautiously as I could, until presently I was following a ragged ditch with the triple spires of Andros looming above me.
Was this where Carson had landed? So far as I could judge, it seemed so. I was tense, alert with the vague, horrible feeling that I was walking into ambush.
Then ahead of me, in a distant shadow, it seemed that there was a faint stir of movement. Soundlessly I melted down to the lead-gray rocks. I could not see the shadow now, but every instant I expected the luminous darkness to be stabbed with a bursting bolt. There was nothing.
Suddenly the stillness was broken by a faint scraping sound. It seemed fairly close, and into the darkness from whence it had come I aimed my ray; pressed its lever.
There was a faint, gasping scream; then a choked silence. I jumped to my feet, holding the paralyzer-gun leveled as it throbbed and quivered in my grip. Got him! He couldn't move. He was rooted there in the darkness, with rigid, stiffened muscles as the ray held him.
I saw him in an instant, the dark blob of him almost merged with the shadows, with his baggy space-suit like my own deflated in folds upon him, and his helmet folded back.
Triumphant, I dashed forward; and then stopped transfixed, amazed. The paralyzed figure, stricken upright here on the rocks wasn't young Carson! Above the folded helmet there was a head of bobbed blonde hair! Brenda! Brenda, not dead! Not that ghastly thing that was a gruesome little satellite of the Seven Stars!
I saw her rigid face, with goggling mouth and staring eyes. Brenda mute, stricken by my ray. I snapped it off frantically; called to her as I dashed up. And as the ray released her, I saw her waver; then, with her knees buckling, she sank into a little heap on the ground.
If only I had some water to dash into her face! Frantically I knelt, holding her head, brushing her curls from her damp forehead. The ray, I knew, upon her for so short a time, should not quite do this to her. It was her emotion, her terror which had caused her to faint.
My mind went back to that hooded figure, cloaked, which I had chased in the ship's corridor. I had had a vague indecision, then had decided it was Brenda—and the ship's lookout at the bow-peak had confirmed my fears. But that had been Philip, and it was Brenda whom I had chased that second time, following her out the porte, hurtling into space after her.