plant, echoed by the fear-pulses of the animals and the ringingly
reflecting cliffs. They were curling, shriveling and blackening as the
rocket poured the glowing death down on them, and the withering veins
and nerves cried to the stars.

Kreega huddled against a tall gaunt crag. His eyes were like yellow
moons in the darkness, cold with terror and hate and a slowly
gathering resolution. Grimly, he estimated that the death was being
sprayed in a circle some ten miles across. And he was trapped in it,
and soon the hunter would come after him.

He looked up to the indifferent glitter of stars, and a shudder went
along his body. Then he sat down and began to think.

* * * * *

It had started a few days before, in the private office of the trader
Wisby.

"I came to Mars," said Riordan, "to get me an owlie."

Wisby had learned the value of a poker face. He peered across the rim
of his glass at the other man, estimating him.

Even in God-forsaken holes like Port Armstrong one had heard of
Riordan. Heir to a million-dollar shipping firm which he himself had
pyramided into a System-wide monster, he was equally well known as a
big game hunter. From the firedrakes of Mercury to the ice crawlers of
Pluto, he'd bagged them all. Except, of course, a Martian. That
particular game was forbidden now.

He sprawled in his chair, big and strong and ruthless, still a young
man. He dwarfed the unkempt room with his size and the hard-held
dynamo strength in him, and his cold green gaze dominated the trader.

"It's illegal, you know," said Wisby. "It's a twenty-year sentence if
you're caught at it."

"Bah! The Martian Commissioner is at Ares, halfway round the planet.
If we go at it right, who's ever to know?" Riordan gulped at his
drink. "I'm well aware that in another year or so they'll have
tightened up enough to make it impossible. This is the last chance for
any man to get an owlie. That's why I'm here."

Wisby hesitated, looking out the window. Port Armstrong was no more
than a dusty huddle of domes, interconnected by tunnels, in a red
waste of sand stretching to the near horizon. An Earthman in airsuit
and transparent helmet was walking down the street and a couple of
Martians were lounging against a wall. Otherwise nothing--a silent,
deadly monotony brooding under the shrunken sun. Life on Mars was not
especially pleasant for a human.

"You're not falling into this owlie-loving that's corr