spreading into the sand told a different story.

"Razor-back Lizards," Leeda informed Rick. "They're all over the place. Come to life during the day when it's a little warmer. Our footwear keeps them off. But Jocco's feet haven't any protection so they can get at him. They'll slice away at him a fraction of an inch at a time. In fifteen minutes there won't be anything left but his suit and a skeleton. Pleasant death, eh Rick? But after all, they do have to eat, as you have said."

Jocco toppled and lay twitching on his side; the legs of his Protecto-suit apparently buried in the sand. The pants legs were strangely deflated except for the twisting and squirming of the unseen Lizards as they ate their way into the upper part of the suit. It took less than fifteen minutes. At the end, Leeda looked away. Once, long ago, she had watched in horror as the blood-colored tide burst into the helmet of a prospector friend of Terry's and hers. It was a sight that she had seen many times later in nightmares. Now as she imagined it, she heard Rick suck in his breath sharply and say hoarsely, "No! No!"

"Shall we be moving on?" she asked at last. The suit filled only with fleshless skeleton, lay deflated on the ground.

Rick's face was a dull sandy yellowish hue. He nodded and turned off into the desert without a word.

That third day was shooting pains, a chest that protested with every step, legs that could not be felt but somehow magically functioned. Many times Leeda was ready to quit. She began to stagger and weave erratically across the sand. The only thing that kept her going was the obsession of revenge that seemed to provide a limitless source of power whenever she seemed weakest. And Rick was getting bad; he seemed about finished. How he managed to keep moving, Leeda could not imagine. He fell repeatedly; but pulled himself doggedly back to his feet and stumbled after her.

When she flopped to the sand toward nightfall, he gestured her to her feet. And when she failed to get up, he came over and dragged her roughly erect. "Can't stop—never get up—gotta keep moving—until we die—or get there. Move!"

But the Martian night accomplished what she could not. Landmarks became indistinguishable; they soon would have been lost.

Lying down, Leeda adjusted her head-bubble so that it became opaque; conserving the warmth that leaked off so rapidly from a transparent object.

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