He was doomed to death if he were discovered. Nowhere on Mars did he have a friend. Even the unconscious girls he carried would hate him now.
And what was to become of them? MkDowl's Dome would not be rebuilt by another tenant. If he gave up his marsuit to one of them, that would be only one, and the marsuit radio would not reach Kling's Dome. At least one, probably both, were stranded with him.
Not for them would he give up his own life to stay near MkDowl's Dome and call the 'copters in.
Shaan was a democrat and by virtue of that was engaged in a war without quarter against almost everyone else on Mars. He was a lone relic of a defeated army, and he had been driven to the wall. He could surrender to death, or he could fight for survival.
Many men before him, and many living creatures before man appeared on Earth, had faced that situation in one form or another, he thought. Some had succumbed. Others had lived.
The ancestors of man himself had faced it and lived, when they were driven by voracious creatures of the sea into the shallows and at last to the inhospitable land. Now he was driven to a shore more inhospitable than any on Earth, oxygen-poor, water-poor: the Martian shore.
Many years ago his ancestors had learned to crawl instead of swim. He and his descendants—the descendants of Lori and Vali—could learn to crawl instead of walk. Those who crawled could survive and evolve, without domes, without marsuits, without any man-made equipment.
He reached the base of a giant cactus. He was sure it was not the one he had inhabited before, but now he had a knife.
In the distant night sky, he heard the drone of 'copter motors.