Duel on Syrtis Read online

days now, in a littleten-mile circle of ground, and he'd even killed the hawk. But Riordanwas close enough to him now so that the hound could follow his spoor,for Mars had no watercourses to break a trail. So it didn't matter.

  He lay watching the splendid night of stars. It would get cold beforelong, unmercifully cold, but his sleeping bag was a good-enoughinsulator to keep him warm with the help of solar energy stored duringthe day by its Gergen cells. Mars was dark at night, its moons oflittle help--Phobos a hurtling speck, Deimos merely a bright star.Dark and cold and empty. The rockhound had burrowed into the loosesand nearby, but it would raise the alarm if the Martian should comesneaking near the camp. Not that that was likely--he'd have to findshelter somewhere too, if he didn't want to freeze.

  _The bushes and the trees and the little furtive animals whispered aword he could not hear, chattered and gossiped on the wind about theMartian who kept himself warm with work. But he didn't understand thatlanguage which was no language._

  Drowsily, Riordan thought of past hunts. The big game of Earth, lionand tiger and elephant and buffalo and sheep on the high sun-blazingpeaks of the Rockies. Rain forests of Venus and the coughing roar of amany-legged swamp monster crashing through the trees to the placewhere he stood waiting. Primitive throb of drums in a hot wet night,chant of beaters dancing around a fire--scramble along the hell-plainsof Mercury with a swollen sun licking against his puny insulatingsuit--the grandeur and desolation of Neptune's liquid-gas swamps andthe huge blind thing that screamed and blundered after him--

  But this was the loneliest and strangest and perhaps most dangeroushunt of all, and on that account the best. He had no malice toward theMartian; he respected the little being's courage as he respected thebravery of the other animals he had fought. Whatever trophy he broughthome from this chase would be well earned.

  The fact that his success would have to be treated discreetly didn'tmatter. He hunted less for the glory of it--though he had to admit hedidn't mind the publicity--than for love. His ancestors had foughtunder one name or another--viking, Crusader, mercenary, rebel,patriot, whatever was fashionable at the moment. Struggle was in hisblood, and in these degenerate days there was little to struggleagainst save what he hunted.

  Well--tomorrow--he drifted off to sleep.

  * * * * *

  He woke in the short gray dawn, made a quick breakfast, and whistledhis hound to heel. His nostrils dilated with excitement, a high keendrunkenness that sang wonderfully within him. Today--maybe today!

  They had to take a roundabout way down into the canyon and the houndcast about for an hour before he picked up the scent. Then thedeep-voiced cry rose again and they were off--more slowly now, for itwas a cruel stony trail.

  The sun climbed high as they worked along the ancient river-bed. Itspale chill light washed needle-sharp crags and fantastically paintedcliffs, shale and sand and the wreck of geological ages. The low harshbrush crunched under the man's feet, writhing and crackling itsimpotent protest. Otherwise it was still, a deep and taut and somehowwaiting stillness.

  The hound shattered the quiet with an eager yelp and plunged forward.Hot scent! Riordan dashed after him, trampling through dense bush,panting and swearing and grinning with excitement.

  Suddenly the brush opened underfoot. With a howl of dismay, the houndslid down the sloping wall of the pit it had covered. Riordan flunghimself forward with tigerish swiftness, flat down on his belly withone hand barely catching the animal's tail. The shock almost pulledhim into the hole too. He wrapped one arm around a bush that clawed athis helmet and pulled the hound back.

  Shaking, he peered into the trap. It had been well made--about twentyfeet deep, with walls as straight and narrow as the sand would allow,and skillfully covered with brush. Planted in the bottom were threewicked-looking flint spears. Had he been a shade less quick in hisreactions, he would have lost the hound and perhaps himself.

  He skinned his teeth in a wolf-grin and looked around. The owlie musthave worked all night on it. Then he couldn't be far away--and he'd bevery tired--

  As if to answer his thoughts, a boulder crashed down from the nearercliff wall. It was a monster, but a falling object on Mars has lessthan half the acceleration it does on Earth. Riordan scrambled asideas it boomed onto the place where he had been lying.

  "Come on!" he yelled, and plunged toward the cliff.

  For an instant a gray form loomed over the edge, hurled a spear athim. Riordan snapped a shot at it, and it vanished. The spear glancedoff the tough fabric of his suit and he scrambled up a narrow ledge tothe top of the precipice.

  The Martian was nowhere in sight, but a faint red trail led into therugged hill country. _Winged him, by God!_ The hound was slower innegotiating the shale-covered trail; his own feet were bleeding whenhe came up. Riordan cursed him and they set out again.

  They followed the trail for a mile or two and then it ended. Riordanlooked around the wilderness of trees and needles which blocked viewin any direction. Obviously the owlie had backtracked and climbed upone of those rocks, from which he could take a flying leap to someother point. But which one?

  Sweat which he couldn't wipe off ran down the man's face and body. Heitched intolerably, and his lungs were raw from gasping at his dole ofair. But still he laughed in gusty delight. What a chase! What achase!

  * * * * *

  Kreega lay in the shadow of a tall rock and shuddered with weariness.Beyond the shade, the sunlight danced in what to him was a blinding,intolerable dazzle, hot and cruel and life-hungry, hard and bright asthe metal of the conquerors.

  It had been a mistake to spend priceless hours when he might have beenresting working on that trap. It hadn't worked, and he might haveknown that it wouldn't. And now he was hungry, and thirst was like awild beast in his mouth and throat, and still they followed him.

  They weren't far behind now. All this day they had been dogging him;he had never been more than half an hour ahead. No rest, no rest, adevil's hunt through a tormented wilderness of stone and sand, and nowhe could only wait for the battle with an iron burden of exhaustionlaid on him.

  The wound in his side burned. It wasn't deep, but it had cost himblood and pain and the few minutes of catnapping he might havesnatched.

  For a moment, the warrior Kreega was gone and a lonely, frightenedinfant sobbed in the desert silence. _Why can't they let me alone?_

  A low, dusty-green bush rustled. A sandrunner piped in one of theravines. They were getting close.

  Wearily, Kreega scrambled up on top of the rock and crouched low. Hehad backtracked to it; they should by rights go past him toward histower.

  He could see it from here, a low yellow ruin worn by the winds ofmillennia. There had only been time to dart in, snatch a bow and a fewarrows and an axe. Pitiful weapons--the arrows could not penetratethe Earthman's suit when there was only a Martian's thin grasp to drawthe bow, and even with a steel head the axe was a small and feeblething. But it was all he had, he and his few little allies of a desertwhich fought only to keep its solitude.

  Repatriated slaves had told him of the Earthlings' power. Theirroaring machines filled the silence of their own deserts, gouged thequiet face of their own moon, shook the planets with a senseless furyof meaningless energy. They were the conquerors, and it never occurredto them that an ancient peace and stillness could be worth preserving.

  Well--he fitted an arrow to the string and crouched in the silent,flimmering sunlight, waiting.

  The hound came first, yelping and howling. Kreega drew the bow as faras he could. But the human had to come near first--

  There he came, running and bounding over the rocks, rifle in hand andrestless eyes shining with taut green light, closing in for the death.Kreega swung softly around. The beast was beyond the rock now, theEarthman almost below it.

  The bow twanged. With a savage thrill, Kreega saw the arrow go throughthe hound, saw the creature leap in the air and then roll over andover, howling and biting
at the thing in its breast.

  Like a gray thunderbolt, the Martian launched himself off the rock,down at the human. If his axe could shatter that helmet--

  He struck the man and they went down together. Wildly, the Martianhewed. The axe glanced off the plastic--he hadn't had room for aswing. Riordan roared and lashed out with a fist. Retching, Kreegarolled backward.

  Riordan snapped a shot at him. Kreega turned and fled. The man got toone knee, sighting carefully on the gray form that streaked up thenearest slope.

  A little sandsnake darted up the man's leg and wrapped about hiswrist. Its small strength was just enough to pull the gun aside. Thebullet screamed past Kreega's ear as he vanished into a cleft.

  He felt the thin death-agony of the snake as the man pulled it looseand crushed it underfoot. Somewhat later, he heard a dull boom echoingbetween the hills. The man had gotten explosives from his boat andblown up the tower.

  He had lost axe and bow. Now he was utterly