blaster, aimed and squeezed the trigger. There was a faint bluish glow
at the muzzle, and a blast of energy tore through the brush, smashing
the molecular structure of everything that stood in the way. There was
an involuntary shout of alarm from the direction of the road; at least
one of the policemen had escaped the blast. Hradzka holstered his weapon
and crept away for some distance, keeping under cover, then turned and
waited for some sign of the presence of his enemies. For some time
nothing happened; he decided to turn hunter against the men who were
hunting him. He started back in the direction of the road, making a wide
circle, flitting silently from rock to bush and from bush to tree,
stopping often to look and listen.

This finally brought him upon one of the policemen, and almost
terminated his flight at the same time. He must have grown
over-confident and careless; suddenly a weapon roared, and a missile
smashed through the brush inches from his face. The shot had come from
his left and a little to the rear. Whirling, he blasted four times, in
rapid succession, then turned and fled for a few yards, dropping and
crawling behind a rock. When he looked back, he could see wisps of smoke
rising from the shattered trees and bushes which had absorbed the
energy-output of his weapon, and he caught a faint odor of burned flesh.
One of his pursuers, at least, would pursue him no longer.

He slipped away, down into the tangle of ravines and hollows in which he
had wandered the day before his arrival at the farm. For the time being,
he felt safe, and finally confident that he was not being pursued, he
stopped to rest. The place where he stopped seemed familiar, and he
looked about. In a moment, he recognized the little stream, the pool
where he had bathed his feet, the clump of seedling pines under which he
had slept. He even found the silver-foil wrapping from the food