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we’ll catch you. It will be only a matter of time. We no longer plan to remove you to the Moon-base. You will be destroyed on sight, and we will have to take the chance that the bomb will detonate. I have ordered every available Security officer in the area. The whole county is being searched, inch by inch. There is no place you can go. Around this wood is a cordon of armed men. You have about six hours left before the last inch is covered.”
    Olham moved away. Peters went on speaking; he had not seen him at all. It was too dark to see anyone. But Peters was right. There was no place he could go. He was beyond the settlement, on the outskirts where the woods began. He could hide for a time, but eventually they would catch him.
    Only a matter of time.
    Olham walked quietly away through the wood. Mile by mile, each part of the country was being measured off, laid bare, searched, studied, examined. The cordon was coming all the time, squeezing him into a smaller and smaller space.
    What was there left? He had lost the ship, the one hope of escape. They were at his home; his wife was with them, believing, no doubt, that the real Olham had been killed. He clenched his fists. Some place there was a wrecked Outspace needle-ship, and in it the remains of the robot. Somewhere nearby the ship had crashed, and broken up.
    And the robot lay inside, destroyed.
    A faint hope stirred him. What if he could find the remains? If he could show them the wreckage, the remains of the ship, the robot—
    But where? Where would he find it?
    He walked on, lost in thought. Some place, not too far off, probably. The ship would have landed close to the Project; the robot would have expected to go the rest of the way on foot. He went up the side of a hill and looked around. Crashed and burned. Was there some clue, some hint? Had he read anything, heard anything? Some place close by, within walking distance. Some wild place, a remote spot where there would be no people.
    Suddenly Olham smiled. Crashed and burned—
    Sutton Wood.
    He increased his pace.
    It was morning. Sunlight filtered down through the broken trees, on to the man crouching at the edge of the clearing. Olham glanced up from time to. time, listening. They were not far off, only a few minutes away. He smiled.
    Down below him, strewn across the clearing and into the charred stumps that had been Sutton Wood, lay a tangled mass of wreckage. In the sunlight it glittered a little, gleaming darkly. He had not had too much trouble finding it. Sutton Wood was a place he knew well; he had climbed around it many times in his life, when he was younger. He had known where he would find the remains. There was one peak that jutted up suddenly, without warning.
    A descending ship, unfamiliar with the Wood, had little chance of missing it. And now he squatted, looking down at the ship, or what remained of it.
    Olham stood up. He could hear them, only a little distance away. coming together, talking in low tones. He tensed himself. Everything depended on who first saw him. If it were Nelson he had no chance. Nelson would fire at once. He would be dead before they saw the ship. But if he had time to call out, hold them off for a moment—that was all he needed. Once they saw the ship he would be safe.
    But if they fired first—
    A charred branch cracked. A figure appeared, coming forward uncertainly. Olham took a deep breath. Only a few seconds remained, perhaps the last seconds of his life. He raised his arms, peering intently.
    It was Peters.
    “Peters!” Olham waved his arms. Peters lifted his gun, aiming. “Don’t fire!” His voice shook. “Wait a minute. Look past me, across the clearing.”
    “I’ve found him,” Peters shouted. Security men came pouring out of the burned woods around him.
    “Don’t shoot. Look past me. The ship, the needle-ship. The Outspace ship. Look!”
    Peters hesitated. The gun wavered.
    “It’s down there,” Olham said rapidly. “I knew I’d find it here. The