"I'd hate to be without clothes on this desert. No garden here."
"That's right. No place for a nudist colony on Mars."
She sat up suddenly, looking past the rock at a distant shadow. Her face grew pale, and she whispered fearfully, "Look, John! There's something moving over by those rocks."
He leaped to his feet. "Yes—and it's a Mars Coyote. I noticed a picture on page three. Harmless, I guess, but we'd better get back. It's close. We should have been watching."
They rose hastily and walked around the boulder, back toward the entrance. Hilda started and stifled a scream as they left the shelter. John drew his clumsy gas gun and stepped in front of her. Before them, on the red stretch of sand toward the entrance, were hundreds of the reddish-gray, smooth haired animals, with pointed noses and wickedly gleaming eyes.
These moved back silently as the two humans approached, but only a little way.
"The book says they're cowardly," she gasped, "but there are so many!"
"Too damned many—I wonder if I ought to shoot one, to keep the others away."
The red-gray circle bent away from them slowly, as they walked steadily across the weirdly shadowed sand toward the gleaming metal door, so far ahead. The animals massed thickly before them, and were finally crowded up against the cliff and its door. They slid out sidewise but tumbled into each other. One made a dash forward, but John dropped it with the little gas pellet that broke against its hide, with a sinking yellow cloud of gas. There was also an injection of paralysis fluid from the plastic point of the pellet. The little gun made no noise as it was operated by a spring. John levered another pellet into the firing tube. After the yellow gas had blown away in the strong wind, the red-gray bodies crept toward their fallen comrade and suddenly rushed in, with a horrible clicking of teeth and fierce, silent ripping of flesh.