die, and all Hell is loosed on the killer.

If the girl had turned in the alarm, it was only a matter of time. They
would have his name and number; his ident-card would be listed and
reproduced, sent everywhere. They would probably have the robot trackers
out, those hideous electronic bloodhounds which can unerringly sort out
a man's trail from the infinity of other scents and markings, following
not smell, but a curious tangle of electrical impulses left by his body
like static electricity or intangible magnetism. No layman could even
guess how such a robot worked, but fugitives had learned to dread its
infallible tracking ability.

Newlin fled, and as he went, he cursed himself for getting involved in
such a nightmare.

Figures moved and blundered about him in the darkness of the park, but
none got in his way. None seemed to notice him. Since it was not a man
he had killed, perhaps others hunted him; other remote, alien beings he
could not see, or sense.

The girl would know, of course. If he could find her. But she had
vanished before he ever issued from the strange tower, and it was highly
unlikely that he would ever see her again.

Chance, and a sudden rush of blue-clad figures across a street ahead of
him, turned Newlin back toward his own, familiar part of town. The scant
shelter of shadows in deserted alleyways was a comfort, but little real
protection. He had friends, of a peculiar sort, in the old native
quarter, and the Spacebell lay just outside the fringe of the mutants'
district, where the half-human natives laired up. These friends might
hide him, for a while, although such refuge was of little use against
the robot-trackers.

By daylight, he could be smuggled outside the domed city, and once into
the wastelands, there was a chance. Not a good one; but there, even the
robot-tracker could hardly come upon him without his knowledge. A lucky
blaster shot would leave a blank trail and a shattered robot for his
pursuers to follow. He wondered if they would risk another such
expensive machine merely to hunt down a murderer in the wastelands.
Scarcely, when the wastelands would kill the fugitive sooner or later
anyhow.

His first task was to reach the Spacebell and collect his pay. Then to
get protection-armor, against the peril of sandstorms and the
radioactive sinks that spot the old sea-beds outside Venusport. After
that, the native quarter, if he lived to reach it.

Shortly before daylight, he turn