clattering up the slope to its
fellow's aid.

Flame bloomed thunderously from the muzzle of the first one's forward
gun. The machine with the torch was flung bodily into the air and went
rolling and bouncing down the hill, wheels futilely spinning. The gun
roared again, and the exploding shell tore open a flimsy aluminum body
from nose to tail. Motors whirred frantically as the pygmies scattered
before the charging behemoth. One of them darted witlessly right under
the huge treads, and disappeared with a brief screech of crumpling
metal.

* * * * *

The fight was over as quickly as it had begun. The scavenger wheeled,
snorting, and fired one more shot into the dark after its routed
opponents....

Dworn muttered an imprecation under his breath. No chance of frightening
the scavengers off now that their blood was up and their differences
forgotten; and a lone beetle could scarcely stand up to two of them in a
knock down fight. To rush in now would be suicidal.

He gave up the idea of investigating the scene of disaster more closely,
and backed stealthily away, keeping to the cover of the rocks. At a safe
distance he began circling round, downslope.

What he could and must do now was to locate what was left of his native
horde. It had numbered about fifty when he had departed for his
wanderyear; a dozen, perhaps more, had died on the mountain tonight. He
must seek out the survivors, and help plan retaliation against whatever
enemy had dealt them this terrible blow.

Yet something else nagged at his mind, until he halted to gaze achingly
once more toward the glowing embers up there, where the scavengers now
clanked to and fro about their business.

Dworn recognized that what bothered him was the puzzle of the
unidentified little machines that had turned up on the battlefield only
to be sent packing. During his yearlong solitary struggle to survive, he
had developed an extra sense or two--and in the queerly confident
behavior of those buzzing strangers he had scented danger, a trap....

So it happened that he was still looking on at the moment when the trap
was sprung.

A star, it seemed, fell almost vertically from the zenith, falling and
expanding with the uncanny silence of flight faster than sound. The
scavengers had no time to act. Dworn caught one faint glimpse of a
winged shape against the sky, limned by the flashes that stabbed from it
as it leveled out of its terrific div