ground.

Once something stirred. He woke from a restless sleep and saw a small
thing skittering toward him. He groped for the rifle beside his
sleeping bag, then laughed harshly. It was only a sandmouse. But it
proved that the Martian had no chance of sneaking up on him while he
rested.

He didn't laugh again. The sound had echoed too hollowly in his
helmet.

With the clear bitter dawn he was up. He wanted to get the hunt over
with. He was dirty and unshaven inside the unit, sick of iron rations
pushed through the airlock, stiff and sore with exertion. Lacking the
hound, which he'd had to shoot, tracking would be slow, but he didn't
want to go back to Port Armstrong for another. No, hell take that
Martian, he'd have the devil's skin soon!

Breakfast and a little moving made him feel better. He looked with a
practiced eye for the Martian's trail. There was sand and brush over
everything, even the rocks had a thin coating of their own erosion.
The owlie couldn't cover his tracks perfectly--if he tried, it would
slow him too much. Riordan fell into a steady jog.

Noon found him on higher ground, rough hills with gaunt needles of
rock reaching yards into the sky. He kept going, confident of his own
ability to wear down the quarry. He'd run deer to earth back home, day
after day until the animal's heart broke and it waited quivering for
him to come.

The trail looked clear and fresh now. He tensed with the knowledge
that the Martian couldn't be far away.

Too clear! Could this be bait for another trap? He hefted the rifle
and proceeded more warily. But no, there wouldn't have been time--

He mounted a high ridge and looked over the grim, fantastic landscape.
Near the horizon he saw a blackened strip, the border of his
radioactive barrier. The Martian couldn't go further, and if he
doubled back Riordan would have an excellent chance of spotting him.

He tuned up his speaker and let his voice roar into the stillness:
"Come out, owlie! I'm going to get you, you might as well come out now
and be done with it!"

The echoes took it up, flying back and forth between the naked crags,
trembling and shivering under the brassy arch of sky. _Come out, come
out, come out--_

The Martian seemed to appear from thin air, a gray ghost rising out of
the jumbled stones and standing poised not twenty feet away. For an
instant, the shock of it was too much; Riordan gaped in disbelief.
Kreega waited, quivering ever so faintly as i