me leaped from the weapon,
crackling.

The beam lashed at the tracker, which stopped suddenly, threw back its
monstrous head, and burst into hideous uproar of sparking, electrical
discharge. Like a live thing, it twitched, jerked, and flung itself in
mad spasms. Convulsions stopped as short-circuits flared in both head
and body. Molten, flowing, its metallic carcass glowed eerily in the
dimness. Dying, it blazed up in a fireworks display spectacular enough
to attract half of Venus to the terrified fugitives.

But the drone continued.

From behind the same corner came a duplicate of the first metal monster.
Another tracker.

Its drone rose into shrill crescendo. Like a dog, it approached the
wreckage of its fellow. And like a dog, it summoned help. Then, without
pausing to examine the mechanical casualty, it turned its electronic
attentions back to the hunted.

Hopelessly, Newlin urged Songeen to her feet. They fled, and the game
began all over again.

* * * * *

It was a madman's dream. Desperate flight, the haunted ruins of an
unknown city, deadly pursuit closing in, slowly, patiently inevitably.
The familiar hare and hounds pattern of nightmare.

They fled through vague, littered streets, treacherous with the rubble
of lost centuries. Buildings were lighter patterns upon the gathering
darkness. Stone flagging underfoot was rough, eroded, rotten.

A pinnacled precipice rose suddenly to bar their way. Immense, sheer,
buttressed by spills of loose rock, it towered above them and lost its
heights in gloom.

Within a massive, deep-carved archway of stone, set an oval of polished
red granite. A doorway, barren of carving save for one, scrawled and
monstrous hieroglyph. Uneasiness stirred in Newlin, for something in his
buried race-memories recalled that symbol with supernal dread. Ice
formed about his spine and melted in trickling terror-drops. Instinct
cringed, but his conscious mind rebelled at even the effort of memory.

Songeen stopped and stared at the hideously marked doorway, as if
tranced.

"I _remember_ this place," she said in swift excitement. "But I had
thought it vanished--eons ago."

Newlin swerved on her angrily. "This is no time for experiments with
your subconscious," he growled, savage with strain.

"It is--sanctuary," she replied softly. "Come!"

Boldly she stood before the oval door. Her finger traced its complex
symbol, and the symbol responded with a g