at stop the machine?"

"Not by itself. But if we both move in, blasting together, again and
again we might do it some damage."

"All right," she said, taking the gun.

Nelson led the way into the clearing. The machine moved back a little
and bobbed to keep them in alignment. Nelson felt the dryness of his
throat as he raised his gun to aim at the incurious machine. "All
set?" he asked. From the corner of his eye he could see that Glynnis
had raised her gun and was sighting.

"All set," she answered.

"O.K." Nelson fired. His blast hit the robot head on. It was absorbed,
but almost as soon as it had died down, Glynnis fired. Nelson fired
again, catching the machine in an almost steady stream of white hot
energy. The machine suddenly caught on to what they were doing. It
tried to escape their range by going up, but they followed it. By this
time the compensators were already beginning to fail. Haywire
instruments jerked the machine back down and then side to side, then
into a tree trunk, blindly. It rebounded and dipped low, almost
touching the ground before it curved back up. Some of Glynnis' shots
were missing, but Nelson made every shot count, even while the robot
was darting about wildly.

The machine was glowing cherry red, now, some twelve feet off the
ground, unable to rise further, one end pointed sharply upward.
Something inside it began screaming, loudly, shrilly, with a vibration
that hurt Nelson's teeth. Nelson was firing mechanically. The
machine's loud screaming stopped suddenly. Nelson checked his fire.
Glynnis fired once more, missing as the machine suddenly dropped about
a foot. For perhaps a second the machine remained motionless. Then it
died without sound, and fell to the ground, landing with a dull noise
and setting fire to the grass under and around it.

[Illustration]

For that matter, they had started a major forest fire with their
blastings. The trees across the clearing from them were already
roaring with flames. Nelson didn't wait to check on the machine. He
grabbed Glynnis and pulled her around toward the way they had come.
She stumbled, staring back at the machine.

"Come on!" he said, in agitation. She came to life, mechanically, and
let him propel her along. The wind was away from them, but the fire
growing. They ran madly until they had to stop and fall exhausted to
the ground. When he could breathe again without torturing his lungs,
Nelson looked back and saw the smoke from the