reply--

The monster lumbered slowly into the light, canted far over and
traveling with an odd sidling motion along the steep rubbly slope. Great
treads set far out on each side of the squat, ungainly body preserved it
against overturning. Its flattened forward turret swiveled nervously
from side to side, peering blackly from vision ports steel-shuttered
down to squinting slits.

And Dworn relaxed. The red hatred that had blazed up in him subsided
into mere disgust; he watched the great machine's wary progress with a
familiar, instinctive contempt. It was a scavenger, huge but not very
formidable, drawn from afar by the fires which promised loot,
salvageable scrap, perhaps even usable parts, fuel or ammunition.... It
could not possibly have been responsible for the carnage; such cowardly
creatures gave a wide berth to the beetle horde.

The monster ground to a halt amid the wreckage. Then its engine bellowed
with sudden power and it spun half round, one tread spraying gravel, and
backed hastily away up the slope. And Dworn was aware that the noise of
creaking treads had redoubled. He cast about, and saw, laboring upward
from below, another big machine, closely similar to the first.

Both scavengers came to a stop, facing one another across the fading of
the fires, their unmuffled engines grumbling sullenly. Dworn watched
them narrowly, expecting the shooting to begin any moment. But the
scavengers' way of life was not one that encouraged reckless valor.
After a long minute, a hatch-cover was lifted in the first arrival's
armored back; a cautious head thrust forth, and shouted hoarsely, words
clear to Dworn's amplified hearing:

"Better go back where you came from, brother. We got here first!"

The other scavenger's turret-hatch also swung slightly open. A different
voice answered: "Don't talk foolishness, brother. We've got as much
right here as you, and anyway we _saw_ it first!"

The first voice thickened with belligerence. "We've got the advantage of
the ground on you, brother. Better back up!"

"Oh, go smelt pebbles!" snarled the other. No doubt that was a scathing
rejoinder among the scavengers.

* * * * *

Dworn grimaced scornfully and brought his turret-gun to bear on an
outcropping midway between the disputants. Either of them outweighed the
little beetle twenty times over--but at this juncture a single
unexpected shot would probably send both of them scuttling for cover