Newlin laid ambush for the mechanical monster. Crouched in a nest of rubble, he waited for it, blaster gun ready. Around a corner of shattered stones, it appeared. It moved like a whipping shadow, like part of the gathering twilight.
Silent, save for the high, nerve-tearing drone, it came warily across the courtyard paved with eroded stone. It was low, not animal in appearance, with the form of a fat, ugly snake. Fading light of the Venusian day cast a glint of metallic gray from its scaling of interlocked rings.
Newlin waited for a close shot. How vulnerable was such a soul-less, mechanical monster to even the shattering-heat-forces of a blaster gun?
Songeen lay quietly beside him, her body quivering as much from strained muscles as from fear. Behind the face-mask, her thin features were pale, ghostlike.
With elaborate caution, the tracker circled their hiding place. Its froglike head, with a ruff of exposed filaments lifted, like an animal scenting blood. It edged slowly closer, its movement a glide, sinuous, crafty, with no suggestion of mechanical action.
Newlin pushed the girl's form roughly away, lest her trembling foul his aim. Sighting, he pressed trigger. Bright flame leaped from the weapon, crackling.
The beam lashed at the tracker, which stopped suddenly, threw back its monstrous head, and burst into hideous uproar of sparking, electrical discharge. Like a live thing, it twitched, jerked, and flung itself in mad spasms. Convulsions stopped as short-circuits flared in both head and body. Molten, flowing, its metallic carcass glowed eerily in the dimness. Dying, it blazed up in a fireworks display spectacular enough to attract half of Venus to the terrified fugitives.
But the drone continued.
From behind the same corner came a duplicate of the first metal monster. Another tracker.
Its drone rose into shrill crescendo. Like a dog, it approached the wreckage of its fellow. And like a dog, it summoned help. Then, without pausing to examine the mechanical casualty, it turned its electronic attentions back to the hunted.