Killeen decided to lie low. This cyborg was probably part of a team assigned to clear out any remaining pockets of mechs or humans. If he ran it could easily catch him. His only hope lay in the possibility that the cyborg had not registered his own small, ineffectual fire.

He shut down all his systems again and moved to his right, downslope, seeking more shelter from the rocky ridge. The burning mech was so near that without acoustic amping he could easily hear the crackling and then a loud bang as some vat exploded. Standing still, panting, he thought he could hear the quiet approach of the cyborg: a rustling, clicking cadence as carbosteel limbs articulated.

The cyborg’s noise grew against the pop and snarl of the flames. It should have reached the mech by now. But the sounds did not stop. Instead the steady rhythm seemed to move to his left, skirting around the mech’s pyre.

And slowing. It was coming around on him from above.

Killeen carefully backed farther downslope. The cyborg might not know what was over here; it would be cautious.

Stealth was his only ally. He might be able to slip back over the ridgeline as the cyborg crossed, keeping low so that his opponent missed him. Then he would have a few moments to run. He strained to hear the whispery sound of the cyborg’s flexing leathery hide.

There—it was clambering up over the last shelf of rock which crowned the ridge. Softly he backed away. Time contracted for him and he heard each cyborg step, each swivel and adjustment of pads as they sought purchase on the steeply sloped stones.

The alien was near the top now. Killeen could not tell how far away it was. In the enormous silence, punctuated only by the snapping of the mech’s oily fire, his natural hearing seemed to amplify each small sound into deep significance. Somewhere upslope on the ridge a pebble rattled down. Killeen heard it before he saw it bounce off a boulder and scatter fragments into the soil.

His eyes followed the pebble’s probable trajectory back into a saddleback where a shelf petered out. It had been a natural wash once and he guessed that a steep streambed led down from there, spreading out onto the other face of the ridge. Which implied that the cyborg had paused at the top, maybe resting but more likely just waiting, cautious, probing throughout the spectrum before it exposed itself on the other side.

The saddleback was not far away. If he was right, the cyborg was reconning the far slope. But he did not dare power up any of his sensory net to check.

Killeen set himself and in one quick rush was up and over the nearest jagged shelf. He rolled over the peak and down into a wash of gravel. He came up on his feet, feeling bulky and awkward without any of his inboard systems running. Sluggishly he ran downhill, his joints aching, looking for shelter.

A glance back. The cyborg’s tail antenna was disappearing beyond the saddleback as it headed down the other side. But the alien wouldn’t take long to figure matters out.

Killeen ran pell-mell, stumbling on stones and nearly sprawling more than once. There was no place to hide. The planetary convulsions had brushed this slope free of large boulders and the gullies were folded in, shallow. He searched for any minor cranny in the ridgeline, but the few small caves had fallen in. He ran completely past the burning mech before the idea struck him.

The mech lay blistered and broken now, shattered by internal explosions. Flames began to gutter out. Thick, greasy smoke licked the rocky slope.

Killeen chose a crimp in the hull just above the heavy tread assembly. He looked back at the ridgeline. Something moved there and he did not take the time to see what the cyborg was doing. He flung himself into the stove-in section of the burning mech carcass. He was caught immediately in a tangle of parts and smelly goo.

Still no sign that the cyborg had seen him. Without his sensorium, the usual mech attack modes—microwave, infrared saturation, hyper-fléchettes—would give him no sign unless they struck him square on.

Cowering in the stinking jumble of the ruined mech, he felt a slow rage building. He had been chased and hurt and mistreated and he was damned if he was going to go out this way. He could wait for the cyborg to go away—assuming it did not return to harvest the mech for parts or scrap. But something made him peer out, wanting the big thing to lumber into view, wanting at least one clear shot at it. Ling barked in incredulous anger. Killeen instantly slapped the Aspect down.

He listened intently but could pick up nothing this close to the smoldering fires. He would have to expose himself to see what was going on.

Now that he looked closely at the mech body, he recognized housings and struts and assemblies like those he had yanked out of destroyed mechs back on Snowglade. The outer skin had looked odd, but apparently the same principles of basic design ruled among all mechs at Galactic Center.

Carefully he inched out. Most mechs had visual detectors that registered rapid movement, and the cyborg seemed at least as sophisticated. He saw movement on the ridgeline. Coils of acrid smoke stung his eyes, blurring his vision. He began to wonder if it had been such a brilliant idea after all to hide here. All the cyborg had to do was amble up and overturn the mech body and—

Without any warning the cyborg appeared in his field of view, a watery image refracting through the pall of sour smoke. It articulated deftly over the broken ground, antennae swiveling. But it was not coming toward him. Instead it surged with startling speed across the broad wash of the streambed. A parabolic dish turned and Killeen felt a faint buzzing in his neck. Even with his sensorium deadened, the chips he carried along his spine had picked up the cyborg’s burst.

Such a powerful pulse could not have been simply a comm signal. The cyborg was firing at something. Something that worried it considerably, for it now scrambled forward, its double-jointed limbs clashing with haste, its pads sometimes slipping on the loosened topsoil.

Killeen bit his lip to try to restrain himself, but it was hopeless. Long years of training, the recent humbling capture—these combined to make him seize his narrow-bore rifle, the one inherited from his father and his grandfather before that, and jack a precious shell into it. He leaned against an aluminum strut and aimed with luxuriously deliberate care at the forward comm housing of the cyborg. He squeezed off the round. It struck the base of a big spherical web antenna, shattering it. The cyborg lurched visibly.

Killeen knew that ordinarily he would never have gotten such an easy, unopposed shot. The cyborg must have been in serious trouble before it lumbered into view. Which meant that something was coming after it. More mechs. This cyborg had been unlucky enough to meet overwhelming strength when it was alone.

Killeen made himself tuck the rifle back into his side sling. He had vented his rage, and already he felt a tug of regret. He had felt odd moments of connection with the cyborg which had carried him down from orbit and finally set him free. He owed that single cyborg some gratitude, perhaps. But the outrage perpetrated upon him had needed vengeance, by a law as old as humanity, and now that need had been met.

He settled back into his cranny, hoping nothing had seen where his one shot had come from. The cyborg scrambled on, downslope. It was nearly out of sight before a ringing shot burst beside it, spewing brown soil into the air. Killeen blinked. Mechs seldom used ballistic weapons. They preferred cleaner, lighter, more precise electromagnetic means.

Then a second shell struck the cyborg in its middle. That apparently cut a prime mental function, for the long chunky body convulsed, jerking in spasms of almost sexual frenzy.