owth. Sharp screams punctuated the electric
blue discharge as a pack of small feline creatures leaped snarling and
clawing back into the night.

* * * * *

Mentally, Alan tried to figure the charge remaining in his blaster.
There wouldn't be much. "Enough for a few more shots, maybe. Why the
devil didn't I load in fresh cells this morning!"

The robot crashed on, louder now, gaining on the tired human. Legs
aching and bruised, stinging from insect bites, Alan tried to force
himself to run holding his hands in front of him like a child in the
dark. His foot tripped on a barely visible insect hill and a winged
swarm exploded around him. Startled, Alan jerked sideways, crashing his
head against a tree. He clutched at the bark for a second, dazed, then
his knees buckled. His blaster fell into the shadows.

The robot crashed loudly behind him now. Without stopping to think, Alan
fumbled along the ground after his gun, straining his eyes in the
darkness. He found it just a couple of feet to one side, against the
base of a small bush. Just as his fingers closed upon the barrel his
other hand slipped into something sticky that splashed over his forearm.
He screamed in pain and leaped back, trying frantically to wipe the
clinging, burning blackness off his arm. Patches of black scraped off
onto branches and vines, but the rest spread slowly over his arm as
agonizing as hot acid, or as flesh being ripped away layer by layer.

Almost blinded by pain, whimpering, Alan stumbled forward. Sharp muscle
spasms shot from his shoulder across his back and chest. Tears streamed
across his cheeks.

A blue arc slashed at the trees a mere hundred yards behind. He screamed
at the blast. "Damn you, Pete! Damn your robots! Damn, damn ... Oh,
Peggy!" He stepped into emptiness.

Coolness. Wet. Slowly, washed by the water, the pain began to fall away.
He wanted to lie there forever in the dark, cool, wetness. For ever, and
ever, and ... The air thundered.

In the dim light he could see the banks of the stream, higher than a
man, muddy and loose. Growing right to the edge of the banks, the jungle
reached out with hairy, disjointed arms as if to snag even the dirty
little stream that passed so timidly through its domain.

Alan, lying in the mud of the stream bed, felt the earth shake as the
heavy little robot rolled slowly and inexorably towards him. "The Lord
High Executioner," he thought, "in battle dress." H