Newlin fled, and as he went, he cursed himself for getting involved in such a nightmare.
Figures moved and blundered about him in the darkness of the park, but none got in his way. None seemed to notice him. Since it was not a man he had killed, perhaps others hunted him; other remote, alien beings he could not see, or sense.
The girl would know, of course. If he could find her. But she had vanished before he ever issued from the strange tower, and it was highly unlikely that he would ever see her again.
Chance, and a sudden rush of blue-clad figures across a street ahead of him, turned Newlin back toward his own, familiar part of town. The scant shelter of shadows in deserted alleyways was a comfort, but little real protection. He had friends, of a peculiar sort, in the old native quarter, and the Spacebell lay just outside the fringe of the mutants' district, where the half-human natives laired up. These friends might hide him, for a while, although such refuge was of little use against the robot-trackers.
By daylight, he could be smuggled outside the domed city, and once into the wastelands, there was a chance. Not a good one; but there, even the robot-tracker could hardly come upon him without his knowledge. A lucky blaster shot would leave a blank trail and a shattered robot for his pursuers to follow. He wondered if they would risk another such expensive machine merely to hunt down a murderer in the wastelands. Scarcely, when the wastelands would kill the fugitive sooner or later anyhow.
His first task was to reach the Spacebell and collect his pay. Then to get protection-armor, against the peril of sandstorms and the radioactive sinks that spot the old sea-beds outside Venusport. After that, the native quarter, if he lived to reach it.
Shortly before daylight, he turned the last alley-corner and came in sight of the Spacebell.
A shadow stirred with movement. A lithe, loosely draped figure hurried to meet him. It was the girl—Songeen.
"Don't go in there," she said. "They know who you are, and the police are waiting for you."
Newlin felt numb all over. "How did they know? Did you tell them?" he snapped.