He couldn't take the time, he told himself. He must be out of here before the hunt shifted from the alley to spread, perhaps, to the street outside.

He stumbled about the area, finally found the stairs, and went down them to the lower floor.

Here the light filtering through the display windows in the front was stronger than it had been upstairs.

At the door he turned back the knob of the night lock, released the regular latch, and pulled the door partway open, staring through the grimy glass at the street outside. The street seemed to be empty.

He opened the door and slid outside, pulling it to, but not latching it. He might need to get back through that door and thus under cover very quickly. Squeezing tight against the front of the building, he glanced quickly up and down the street.

There was no one.

Sprinting, he crossed the street, reached the corner, went around it, slowed to a rapid walk. Two blocks away he met another walker, but the man went past with barely a glance. There were a few cars and he slid into shadowed doorways until they'd gone past.

Half an hour later he began to feel he'd made it, that for the moment he was safe.

Safe, but running once again.

He could not, he knew, go back to the basement. For Appleton and his men would know about that hideout, must have watched him while they fabricated their conspiracy against him, the masterstroke that was intended to erase forever whatever threat he might represent to Appleton and Lane.

And what was that threat? he wondered. What did the paper mean? And had the paper actually been among the papers he'd put in the envelope for Ann?

Thinking about the envelope and Ann, he felt a pang of panic. If Appleton knew she had that paper, or suspected that she had it, she was in deadly danger. As everyone whose life touched his seemed in deadly danger. The man at the restaurant had done no more than a compassionate act for an unknown fellowman and now, because of this, lay dead, shot down with no other thought than how his death might contribute to the entrapment and the death of the man he had befriended.

Appleton must know that Ann had talked with him. More than likely it had been her appearance on the scene (signaling the belief that he was about to make some move?) which had triggered his seizure and his condemnation.

Perhaps, he thought, he should somehow warn her. But how was he to warn her? A phone call, but he had no money for a call. And a phone call, in any case, would be a stupid move, for in all probability her phone would be tapped. And she, herself, watched.

Or contact Chapman? But that, as well, was dangerous—not only to himself but to Chapman and to Ann. For it was likely that Appleton knew Chapman had come to see him and it would need no great imagination to connect Chapman with Ann.

The best thing he could do, Frost told himself, was to stay away from both of them. They should be warned, both of them, but in the warning he'd likely do more harm than if they never knew.

He settled down to a steady, dogged trudging, keeping to the shadows as much as possible. It was essential, he knew, to put as much distance between himself and the alley where the man had died as he could. But well before dawn he must find a place to hide, a den where he could crouch through the daylight hours. And when night came he must push on again to build an even greater distance between himself and the wrath that trailed him.

Two old men met in a park for a game of checkers.

"You hear the latest," asked one old codger, "about this Forever business?"

"You hear so much," said the other one, setting up the pieces, "that you hardly know what story to believe. They say now that if they get this immortality business worked out, you won't have to die at all. They'll just line everybody up, every blessed one of us, and jab us in the arm and then we'll get young again and we'll live forever. Won't that be something, now?"

The old codger shook his head. "That ain't what I had in mind. Got this direct. My nephew has a brother-in-law who works in one of them Forever labs and it was him that told it. I can tell you there are a lot of people who'll be in for a big surprise."

"What surprise?" the second asked, impatiently.

"Well, maybe that's not the word exactly. Maybe they won't be surprised. Hard to be surprised, I suppose, when you go on being dead."

"You're rambling on again," complained his partner. "Why can't you ever come right out and say what is on your mind?"

"I was just laying the foundation. Giving you the background."

"Well, get on with it so we can start this game."

"It seems," the old codger told him, "that they've found there is some sort of bacteria—I think that's what he said—some sort of bacteria that lives inside the brain and that this bacteria can go right on living when the body's frozen. The brain is frozen solid, but this bacteria isn't bothered whatsoever. It goes right on living, multiplying all the time, and eating at the brain." "I don't believe it," said the other. "You hear such stories all the time and I tell you, John, there ain't a lick of truth in any one of them. I wouldn't be surprised if them Holies don't start them stories just to befuddle us. If we got this bacteria in the brain, how come it don't eat up the brain while we are still alive?" "Well, that's just it," said John. "When we are alive, there's something in the brain—antibodies, would they be? — that hold them bacteria in check. But when the brain is frozen it can't make them antibodies and the bacteria run wild. I tell you, there are a lot of people in those vaults who have no brain at all, just an empty skull crammed full of bacteria."

Frost came to a decision; to carry out the decision, he stole an automobile.

The theft was not an easy task. He had to find a car in which the forgetful owner had left the key. He knew, vaguely, that there was a way by which one could juggle ignition wires to start the motor without a key, but he had no idea how to go about it. Besides, he had an unreasonable fear of electricity and, thus, a disinclination to fool around with wires.

On the fourth night of his search, he found a car parked behind a food market with the key in the ignition. He scouted the area to make sure that no one was around to raise an alarm when he took the car. More than likely, he reasoned, it belonged to someone working late in the market. There were lighted windows in the back of the place, but they were located too high for him to reach them in an attempt to see who might be there.

He slid beneath the wheel and started the motor. Hold-

ing his breath, he eased the machine out of the parking area and down the ramp to the street. It was not until he was a dozen blocks away that he resumed his normal breathing.

Half an hour later he stopped the car and rummaged in the tool kit, coming up with a small screwdriver. A mile or so farther on, in a residential area where the street was dark because of the great elms which lined the boulevard, he parked behind another car. Working without light and by feel, and as quietly as he could, he switched the license plates of the car he'd stolen with the one parked in the street.

Driving off, he told himself it might have'been a waste of time to make the switch of plates, but within a few hours someone would report a stolen car and the switching of the plates might give him a slightly better chance to go on undetected.

There was little traffic, here on the west edge of the city. Night after night, as he had hunted for a car that he could steal, he had worked his way westward, heading for the city's edge and the wilderness beyond. There, even from the first night of his flight from the alley, he had reasoned he'd have a better chance to hide. Such population as there might be was scattered and there were great areas which had reverted back from farmland to heavy second growth. And also, in the back of his mind, was a persistent feeling that Apple-ton would not suspect that he would leave the city.