rouched in the silent,
flimmering sunlight, waiting.

The hound came first, yelping and howling. Kreega drew the bow as far
as he could. But the human had to come near first--

There he came, running and bounding over the rocks, rifle in hand and
restless eyes shining with taut green light, closing in for the death.
Kreega swung softly around. The beast was beyond the rock now, the
Earthman almost below it.

The bow twanged. With a savage thrill, Kreega saw the arrow go through
the hound, saw the creature leap in the air and then roll over and
over, howling and biting at the thing in its breast.

Like a gray thunderbolt, the Martian launched himself off the rock,
down at the human. If his axe could shatter that helmet--

He struck the man and they went down together. Wildly, the Martian
hewed. The axe glanced off the plastic--he hadn't had room for a
swing. Riordan roared and lashed out with a fist. Retching, Kreega
rolled backward.

Riordan snapped a shot at him. Kreega turned and fled. The man got to
one knee, sighting carefully on the gray form that streaked up the
nearest slope.

A little sandsnake darted up the man's leg and wrapped about his
wrist. Its small strength was just enough to pull the gun aside. The
bullet screamed past Kreega's ear as he vanished into a cleft.

He felt the thin death-agony of the snake as the man pulled it loose
and crushed it underfoot. Somewhat later, he heard a dull boom echoing
between the hills. The man had gotten explosives from his boat and
blown up the tower.

He had lost axe and bow. Now he was utterly weaponless, without even a
place to retire for a last stand. And the hunter would not give up.
Even without his animals, he would follow, more slowly but as
relentlessly as before.

Kreega collapsed on a shelf of rock. Dry sobbing racked his thin body,
and the sunset wind cried with him.

Presently he looked up, across a red and yellow immensity to the low
sun. Long shadows were creeping over the land, peace and stillness for
a brief moment before the iron cold of night closed down. Somewhere
the soft trill of a sandrunner echoed between low wind-worn cliffs,
and the brush began to speak, whispering back and forth in its ancient
wordless tongue.

The desert, the planet and its wind and sand under the high cold
stars, the clean open land of silence and loneliness and a destiny
which was not man's, spoke to him. The enormous oneness of life on
Mars, drawn together