the darkness and the mist over the sea and over the rock and now engulfing them with its white ectoplasmic tendrils. In the mist she knew she could escape Slade, and yet she did not. Without Slade now, now in the middle of nowhere there by the sea on the shores of the young Earth, she would die in the storm. With Slade—at least for now—was life. And she went on.

The thunder followed them—and came closer.

By the middle of the night it sounded like artillery at a distance of half a mile, like a barrage of big atomic shells just out of sight behind a black ridgeline which wasn't there. And through the deeper rain-wet darkness of early morning, through the mist, tearing the mist to tatters, shredding it, came the spears and forks and lances of lightning. It was, Marcia thought, a nightmare of a storm. And she must remember it, for it would make a story, a real story, if ever she lived to tell it.

By morning, the air smelled of ozone. It reeked of ozone and around them as the gray light seeped out of the wet sky and the rain suddenly slackened as if the weak daylight dispelled it, the black rocks were blasted and broken where lightning had struck.

In the dawn's first light another helicopter came.

"Get down!" Slade shouted, and they dropped among the blasted black rocks, hiding there, not moving. The helicopter came on through the slackening rain, buzzing a few hundred feet over them but not circling. It was heading for the abandoned tank, Marcia thought. It wasn't looking for them here—

But suddenly the rain came down in all its savage force again, blinding bounding off the rocks, pounding relentlessly.

Overhead, the helicopter seemed to pause like a bird stricken in flight. The rotors whirled a silver shield against the rain, the great drops splattering off the shield.

And the helicopter came down under the weight of the rain.

t landed a hundred and fifty yards from them down the beach and Marcia watched breathlessly while three men got out and looked at each other and at the rain. The dawn light was still only a dim gray and Marcia could not see the men clearly, but abruptly a jagged spear of lightning blasted rock midway between where they were hiding and the helicopter and in the after-glare through the wet and almost crackling air, the men were very clear. And clearer still when other lightning came down around them, ringing them in, it seemed, like a tent. There was now so much lightning it looked more like an aurora than an electric storm.

The dawn earth, before life, spending itself in fury....

All at once Marcia was running down toward the edge of the water, where the helicopter was. She ran screaming and shouting but the thunder swallowed her puny voice. At every moment she expected Adam Slade to kill her, to merely stand up with the M-gun and shoot her, but he did not and perhaps her unconscious mind in the instant she had fled had instinctively known he would not. For if Adam Slade killed her, he had no hostage. If he killed her and they found him, he would have absolutely no chance.

She turned and looked behind her. There was Slade, silhouetted against the lightning, running, covering the ground in huge strides, gaining on her. She did not look back again. The whole world was lightning and thunder and her legs striking earth under her, up and down, up and down, pounding, running, fleeing, and the rain, Slade's ally, beating her, buffeting her, exploding against her.

She stumbled and fell but she was up and running again in a moment. Now Slade was very close. But the helicopter was close too. She did not think the men there had seen them yet. She waved her arms and screamed although she knew the screams would not be heard—and then Slade was on her.

They went down together and she knew she was frail and helpless before his great