I felt him lurch against me in sudden terror, nearly heaving me into the abyss, but somehow I steadied myself, dropped to my knees, hung on. I turned.
He had avoided a fall too. But I saw no monster.
"Where is it?" I asked.
"It came out of the air right next to me—just popped out of the void and vanished again. I saw it, though." His voice was hoarse. "I apologize for everything I've said. The thing is real. If it weren't for your sure footing we'd both have gone the way Mickens did."
He seemed almost hysterical. There was no sign of the monster, but I wasn't going to take any chances out on this ribbon of rock with a hysterical man.
"Let's go back," I said. "We'll try to get to the cave some other time."
"All right," Donaldson said, shaken. We turned and inched our way back along the shelf to safety, and half-ran to the sanctuary of the ship.
But once we were inside and I was thinking clearly again, I began to sprout some suspicions.
I reasoned it out very carefully. Every time Donaldson had gone out previously, the monster had failed to show. There wasn't another man aboard ship who hadn't had some encounter with the thing. And some of them were remarking about Donaldson's apparent luck.