Part 3 (2/2)

Nellon lobe fell upon hiain that weird peace and coly now He felt a rising tide of drowsiness In soood to allow hi darkness which was filling his mind It would be a blessed surcease from all the troubles and cares of his present world But soreat, calive him every assurance of safety, a stubborn, s In a tur Tim stride toward the nearest of the platforms

It beca Tioal For shortly after the first several steps, the blonde giant's purposeful walk slowed to a be with a curiously disembodied attention, Nellon saw hih he had suddenly beco now Nellon felt a swift rush of terror that ripped hi folds He shot a wide-eyed glance frolobe flaled in panic against the invisible bonds of peace and coo His determination to be free was the fierce and frenzied one of utter fear Flailing his ared to stumble down froht would not reach hile, he slu over him, and he was powerless to fend it off But he knew that he was safe, and the satisfaction which he felt was increased by the radiation which he had absorbed, so that when he finally swooped into unconsciousness, it was a

Nellon's next sensations were curious ones He seemed to awaken in another realuishable feature or color, but it was curiously sentient, pulsing with awesoh stirred by his reflection upon it, the nebulous stuff began to writhe And then, taking shape frohts in his subconscious, a drearow Bits were added here, others discarded there, but every co And all assembled in accordance with the pattern Nellon had fashi+oned in two and a half years of brooding Finally his dream paradise was cos

It was the world which he had built around Laura taken on an immaterial, but to him nonetheless real, life There was Laura and there was himself And there was the co Tie The outlines of his world were di Even Laura, radiantly lovely, was beginning to blur before his eyes

In horror he sought to clutch the evaporating structure to hiers like an impalpable one, and he was back in that formless void in which he had found hi

Nellon awoke He looked around for Laura and that idyllic dreareen cylinder with its flaaze

Nellon climbed to his feet With the action, he became aware that he felt wonderfully refreshed and sti Tih which the rays still poured, he peered through the green wall Big Ti there on the floor within He was very still in his ther As it progressed, there ith it a rising tide of exultation

As long as Big Tilobe, he would re, perhaps, a dream as real and vivid as his own had been It would be just as though Big Tim were dead None of the expeditionTied on titan, the door would soon becoht pass before a chance accident revealed it once o back to the shi+p with a tale of how he had lost Big Tiht search, but he kneould be futile

Laura would grieve, of course, when he returned and told her the news

But he would be there to coet over it And he knew that she wouldTim out of the way He could look forward to a happinessthan that of the dream

Nellon saw his course clear He knew just what he had to do

First he released the lever, and the door slid shut, entoreat cylinder Then he retraced his way down to the lower level and through thebefore the snow of titan once ainst the great door Only the ishut where it had not been shut before--and locked!

Nor would it open again

Even if he had wanted to re-enter, that was impossible

Nellon started back to the shi+p With the curious vigor he felt, the dangers and difficulties of the return trip hardly registered upon hi stor his way over the wild and tu of exhaustion at all that he finally sighted the great, toothed ice ridge which h the narrow cleft which led into the protected, tiny valley, he reer triuo with the story he was to tell