s and the
sand that blew faintly between them. Equatorial Mars!

Lonely or not, the man had a gun that could spang death clear to the
horizon, and he had his beasts, and there would be a radio in the
rocketboat for calling his fellows. And the glowing death ringed them
in, a charmed circle which Kreega could not cross without bringing a
worse death on himself than the rifle would give--

Or was there a worse death than that--to be shot by a monster and have
his stuffed hide carried back as a trophy for fools to gape at? The
old iron pride of his race rose in Kreega, hard and bitter and
unrelenting. He didn't ask much of life these days--solitude in his
tower to think the long thoughts of a Martian and create the small
exquisite artworks which he loved; the company of his kind at the
Gathering Season, grave ancient ceremony and acrid merriment and the
chance to beget and rear sons; an occasional trip to the Earthling
settling for the metal goods and the wine which were the only valuable
things they had brought to Mars; a vague dream of raising his folk to
a place where they could stand as equals before all the universe. No
more. And now they would take even this from him!

He rasped a curse on the human and resumed his patient work, chipping
a spearhead for what puny help it could give him. The brush rustled
dryly in alarm, tiny hidden animals squeaked their terror, the desert
shouted to him of the monster that strode toward his cave. But he
didn't have to flee right away.

* * * * *

Riordan sprayed the heavy-metal isotope in a ten-mile circle around
the old tower. He did that by night, just in case patrol craft might
be snooping around. But once he had landed, he was safe--he could
always claim to be peacefully exploring, hunting leapers or some such
thing.

The radioactive had a half-life of about four days, which meant that
it would be unsafe to approach for some three weeks--two at the
minimum. That was time enough, when the Martian was boxed in so small
an area.

There was no danger that he would try to cross it. The owlies had
learned what radioactivity meant, back when they fought the humans.
And their vision, extending well into the ultra-violet, made it
directly visible to them through its fluorescence--to say nothing of
the wholly unhuman extra senses they had. No, Kreega would try to
hide, and perhaps to fight, and eventually he'd be cornered.

Still, there was no use