there."

He gestured through the translucent skin of the Dome, and I felt sick.
There was a little heap of bones lying there, looking oddly bright
against the redness of the sands. They were the dried, parched skeletons
of Earthmen. Bits of cloth and plastic, once oxymasks and suits, still
clung to them.

Suddenly I remembered. There had been a pattern there all the time. We
didn't much talk about it; we chalked it off as occupational hazards.
There had been a pattern of disappearances on the desert. I could think
of six, eight names now. None of them had been particularly close
friends. You don't get time to make close friends out here. But we'd
vowed it wouldn't happen to us.

It had.

"You've been hunting Geigs?" I asked. "_Why?_ What've they ever done to
you?"

He smiled, as calmly as if I'd just praised his house-keeping. "Because
I hate you," he said blandly. "I intend to wipe every last one of you
out, one by one."

I stared at him. I'd never seen a man like this before; I thought all
his kind had died at the time of the atomic wars.

I heard Val sob, "He's a madman!"

"No," Ledman said evenly. "I'm quite sane, believe me. But I'm
determined to drive the Geigs--and UranCo--off Mars. Eventually I'll
scare you all away."

"Just pick us off in the desert?"

"Exactly," replied Ledman. "And I have no fears of an armed attack. This
place is well fortified. I've devoted years to building it. And I'm back
against those hills. They couldn't pry me out." He let his pale hand run
up into his gnarled hair. "I've devoted years to this. Ever since--ever
since I landed here on Mars."

* * * * *

"What are you going to do with us?" Val finally asked, after a long
silence.

He didn't smile this time. "Kill you," he told her. "Not your husband. I
want him as an envoy, to go back and tell the others to clear off." He
rocked back and forth in his wheelchair, toying with the gleaming,
deadly blaster in his hand.

We stared in horror. It was a nightmare--sitting there, placidly rocking
back and forth, a nightmare.

I found myself fervently wishing I was back out there on the infinitely
safer desert.

"Do I shock you?" he asked. "I shouldn't--not when you see my motives."

"We don't see them," I snapped.

"Well, let me show you. You're on Mars hunting uranium, right? To mine
and ship the radioactives back to Earth to keep the atomic engines
going. Right?"

I nodded over at our