this disaster out into the open where he could face it; where he could assay the damage. He had always taken pride in having a logical mind, with thought processes as clear and orderly as a bookkeeper's ledger. Closing his eyes, he went swiftly over his recollections, placing each in its appropriate column.

When he finished he found the balance extremely unfavorable, but not hopeless. On the asset side he remembered: His name. Donald Johnson. Right now he was on Nature's Moebius Strip, on the planet, Marlock. There was some man he had been following.... The rest was on the liability side of his balance sheet.

is name remained: All other memory of his own identity was gone. There was no recollection of his reason for being on Marlock, or whom he had been following or why. That left him little with which to work.

On the other hand, he mused, he might never be able to get off the Strip, so that didn't matter much. He doubted his ability to stand the stress of penetrating that electric curtain again. His body had been able to take the punishment the first time because the force had built up gradually. Going back would be something else again.

Still he planned his next actions methodically—only in that way could he retain his sanity. He would go forward for one hour, he decided—he checked his wrist watch and discovered it had run down—and, if he found nothing, he would return and take his chances on getting through the curtain.

At the end of ten minutes he sighted land ahead of him. When he stepped off the Strip, he stopped in amazement!

Somehow the Strip had doubled back on itself, and he had returned to his starting place!

To his right was the rough wooden viewing platform, with its green umbrella gone. The stands were empty, and not a person—tourist or concessionaire—was in sight.

As Johnson stood, perplexed, he became aware of numbness spreading over his body. He brought up his hands and watched them slowly turn blue with cold. He realized then, in a burst of wonder, that winter had come to Marlock. Yet it had been spring when he had gone out on the Strip!

ood God, man!" the clerk exclaimed. "Have you been out in that cold without a coat and hat? It must be thirty below."

Johnson was unable to answer. He had run from the Strip—luckily he remembered its location in relation to the town—but it must have been over a mile to the hotel. Now, as he stamped his feet and beat at his sides with numbed hands, he breathed heavily, gasping great gulps of air into his tortured lungs.

"Come and warm yourself," the clerk said, leading him over to a hot water radiator.

Johnson made no protest. He let the heat penetrate until it scorched the skin on his back. Only after the coldness left his body and was replaced by a drowsy inertia did his attention return to the clerk.

"Did you ever see me before?" Johnson asked.

The clerk shook his head. "Not that I know of."

Any further investigation would have to wait until the next day, Johnson decided. He was dead tired, and he had to have some sleep. "Sign me up for a room, will you?" he asked.

Once up in his room, Johnson counted his money. One hundred and fifty-four credits. Enough to buy winter clothing and pay his room and board for a week. Maybe two. What would he do if he could learn nothing about himself before then?

The next day Johnson left the hotel to buy warm clothes. The town's only store was a half-block down the street—as he remembered it, one of the big Interplanet Company stores.

Johnson waited until the storekeeper finished with two of the hairy-eared natives before giving his order. As he paid