Hesperidum about the same distance northeast.

The nearest dome of any kind was a private dome, Kling's Dome, on Peneus Canal at least 250 miles away.

He had been just as well off before he ever came to MkDowl's Dome. But now MkDowl was dead and his two daughters were homeless.

His marshelmet radio buzzed.

"MkDowl Dome, we're nearing you," said a faint voice. "Should land in half an hour. Light beacon and give us a radio beam."

The radio antenna and the beacon had gone down with the dome. Without these, would the government 'copters ever find MkDowl's Dome in the night?

The sun dropped behind the far cliffs and the red twilight of Mars deepened suddenly into darkness. Shaan was safe from discovery for the night now, but the girls might not be rescued in time.

He picked them up from the ground and started off in the general direction of the cactus that had been his temporary home before. He plodded through the canal sage, the girls a dead weight under his arms.

Twice the government 'copters plaintively demanded directional help. After the second time, he switched off the helmet radio.

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 

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