han his own.

If Mars had been able to form his own Veil and step through it in time
to sense the last fading glimmers of Forrester's Veil, he would have
been able to follow immediately. Instead, he had to go to all the
trouble of finding Forrester over and over again. That meant slower
reflexes--and that, Forrester thought, might just give him the edge he
needed.

But this time, Forrester was going to let Mars follow him--slow
reflexes and all. This time, he waited that extra fraction of a
second--and then stepped through the Veil.

He was in the middle of a great rain forest. Around him towered trees
whose great trunks reached up to a leafy sky. The place was dark; little
sunlight came through the roof of leaves and curling vines. A bird
screamed somewhere in the distance, sounding like a lost soul in agony;
the sound was repeated, and then there was silence.

Forrester was exactly where he had intended to be: in the middle of the
Amazon jungle.

He had time for one look around. Then Mars stepped out of a shimmering
Veil only yards away from where Forrester was standing. Immediately,
Forrester felt Mars throw out a suppressor field that would keep him
from forming another Veil. He did the same thing. Now, as long as both
held their respective fields, neither could leave.

"Greetings," Forrester said.

The bird screamed again. Mars ignored it.

"You're just a little too slow," he said, grinning. "And now, buster,
you're going to get it--and get it good."

"Who?" Forrester said. "Me?"

Mars hissed his breath in and fired a blast of blue-white energy that
would have drilled through a foot of armor plate. But Forrester blocked
it; the splatter of free energy struck at the nearby trees, sending them
crashing to the ground. A small blaze started.

Forrester followed the blow with one of his own, but Mars parried
quickly. A few more little fires began in the vicinity. Then Mars
bellowed and charged.

By the time he reached the spot where Forrester had been, Forrester was
fifty feet in the air, standing with his arms folded and looking down in
an interested manner.

"You ought to watch out," he said. "You might stumble into a Venus
Flycatcher down there. I mean besides the one you've got already."

Mars' mouth dropped open. He gave vent to an inarticulate roar of rage
and leaped into the air. As he rose toward Forrester, the defender
closed his eyes and changed shape. He became a rock and dropped. He
bounce