and shaking. He took a few steps
away from the beetle and sank weakly down on the sunwarmed sand.

"What's the matter?" asked Qanya.

He turned and looked dully at her. He had completely forgotten that she
was there.

He said listlessly, "I'm _dead_."

"Of course you're dead." Her brows puckered faintly as she gazed at him.
"Naturally, I drained your fuel tanks last night--"

Dworn surged to his feet and took one step toward her, fists knotted,
blown by a gust of fury. She stared levelly back at him,
unflinching--and he halted, shoulders drooping. "Ah, what's the use?"

He should have foreseen this--not that it would have done any good if he
had. The beetle's fuel supply had been drunk up by the spider now
towering over them; and the beetle's engine, even idling at minimum
consumption, had used up what little remained in the system, and had
stopped. And it was as if Dworn's own lifeblood had been drained and his
own heart had stopped beating.

Qanya was still watching him blankly. She said, "Can't you start it
again?"

Dworn was jolted by the realization that she genuinely didn't understand
that he _was_ dead--that there was no way of restarting an engine once
stopped. Until now he had supposed that all races were the same in that
respect; but evidently spiders were different. In fact, now he
remembered that, when they had entered the spider-vehicle, the girl had
pushed a button that apparently started the engine. Spiders, then, died
and came to life again every day--a startling notion.

But the beetles--Among the thoughts that tumbled disjointedly through
Dworn's head in this awful moment was a clear vision of the night, five
years ago, when his machine-existence had begun: when, in the horde's
encampment by the sea a thousand miles from here, the beetle's last seam
had been welded, and its engine set going with the appropriate ritual of
birth.... The sixteen-year-old boy's heart had beaten high and proudly,
in tune with the heart of steel and fire that had begun to throb at that
moment. And the life expectancy of the two was measured with the same
measure, the life of flesh and that of metal indissolubly entwined....

He mumbled dazedly, "I'm dead, do you hear? Dead!"

There was a sudden howling in the sky. Flashing overhead, as the two
stood momentarily petrified, went a shrieking flight of half a dozen
winged shapes--stubby vanes slanting back from vicious noses, they
hurtled low over the desert and va