The Project Gutenberg EBook of Duel on Syrtis, by Poul William Anderson

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Title: Duel on Syrtis

Author: Poul William Anderson

Release Date: May 19, 2010 [EBook #32436]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced from Planet Stories March 1951. Extensive
research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this
publication was renewed.

[Illustration: _Wearily, Kreega scrambled up on top of the rock and
crouched there...._]

duel on SYRTIS

by POUL ANDERSON

Bold and ruthless, he was famed throughout the System as a
big-game hunter. From the firedrakes of Mercury to the ice-crawlers of
Pluto, he'd slain them all. But his trophy-room lacked one item; and
now Riordan swore he'd bag the forbidden game that roamed the red
deserts ... a Martian!

* * * * *

The night whispered the message. Over the many miles of loneliness it
was borne, carried on the wind, rustled by the half-sentient lichens
and the dwarfed trees, murmured from one to another of the little
creatures that huddled under crags, in caves, by shadowy dunes. In no
words, but in a dim pulsing of dread which echoed through Kreega's
brain, the warning ran--

_They are hunting again._

Kreega shuddered in a sudden blast of wind. The night was enormous
around him, above him, from the iron bitterness of the hills to the
wheeling, glittering constellations light-years over his head. He
reached out with his trembling perceptions, tuning himself to the
brush and the wind and the small burrowing things underfoot, letting
the night speak to him.

Alone, alone. There was not another Martian for a hundred miles of
emptiness. There were only the tiny animals and the shivering brush
and the thin, sad blowing of the wind.

The voiceless scream of dying traveled through the brush, from plant
to