neck and neck. Death sniffed at their heels in the guise of
mechanical trackers. On Venus, life is to the swift and cunning. To
Newlin, life was perilous, but sweet.

Their helmet microphones picked up and amplified a curious droning buzz.
It was the deathsong of the electronic tracker and it seemed closer than
it was.

Slowly, inexorably, it grew louder. Sound swelled steadily, and it was a
whiplash to their flagging energies. They fled in panic through the
streets of the dead city.

It was no real refuge to them, but its megalithic precincts gave some
lying illusion of safety. They chose a twisting, tangled route into the
very heart of the ruined city, with the instinct of a hunted animal to
confuse its trail. They doubled back to cross their own trail twice, in
the vain hope of baffling the electronic enemy.

Newlin had been hunted before, on Mars, but by live bloodhounds. Pepper,
oil of mustard, and perfumes had saved him then. But this hound followed
not scent, but something intangible, electrical, and as mysterious as
the soul-aura itself. It sorted two life-complexes from all other
impulses and followed its own prime-directive--hunt down and kill.

The end was inevitable as death.

* * * * *

Newlin laid ambush for the mechanical monster. Crouched in a nest of
rubble, he waited for it, blaster gun ready. Around a corner of
shattered stones, it appeared. It moved like a whipping shadow, like
part of the gathering twilight.

Silent, save for the high, nerve-tearing drone, it came warily across
the courtyard paved with eroded stone. It was low, not animal in
appearance, with the form of a fat, ugly snake. Fading light of the
Venusian day cast a glint of metallic gray from its scaling of
interlocked rings.

Newlin waited for a close shot. How vulnerable was such a soul-less,
mechanical monster to even the shattering-heat-forces of a blaster gun?

Songeen lay quietly beside him, her body quivering as much from strained
muscles as from fear. Behind the face-mask, her thin features were pale,
ghostlike.

With elaborate caution, the tracker circled their hiding place. Its
froglike head, with a ruff of exposed filaments lifted, like an animal
scenting blood. It edged slowly closer, its movement a glide, sinuous,
crafty, with no suggestion of mechanical action.

Newlin pushed the girl's form roughly away, lest her trembling foul his
aim. Sighting, he pressed trigger. Bright fla