outside, and it was only a little above normal. The last time he had passed this way it had been considerably higher.
He passed several wrecked vehicles such as his own. He ran across another plain of silicon, and in the middle was a huge crater, which he skirted. The pinkness in the sky faded and faded and faded, and a bluish tone came to replace it. The dark lines were still there, and occasionally one widened into a black river as it flowed away into the east. At noon one such river partly eclipsed the sun for a period of eleven minutes. With its departure, there came a brief dust storm, and Tanner turned on the radar and his lights. He knew there was a chasm somewhere ahead, and when he came to it he bore to the left and ran along its edge for close to two miles before it narrowed and vanished. The other vehicles followed, and Tanner took his bearings from the compass once more. The dust had subsided with the brief wind, and even with the screen dimmed Tanner had to don his dark goggles against the glare of reflected sunlight from the faceted field be now negotiated.
He passed towering formations which seemed to be quartz. He had never stopped to investigate them in the past, and he had no desire to do it now. The spectrum danced at their bases, and patches of such light occurred for some distance about them.
Speeding away from the crater, he came again upon sand, clean, brown, white, dun, and red. There were more cacti, and huge dunes lay all about him. The sky continued to change, until finally it was as blue as a baby's eyes. Tanner hummed along with the music for a time, and then he saw the Monster.
It was a Gila, bigger than his car, and it moved in fast. It sprang from out the sheltering shade of a valley filled with cacti, and it raced toward him, its beaded body bright with many colors beneath the sun, its dark, dark eyes unblinking as it bounded forward on its lizard-fast legs, sable fountains rising behind its upheld tail, which was wide as a sail and pointed like a tent.
He couldn't use the rockets, because it was coming in from the side.
He opened up with his fifty-calibers and spread his "wings" and stamped the accelerator to the floor. As it neared, he sent forth a cloud of fire in its direction. By then, the other cars were firing, too.
It swung its tail and opened and closed its jaws, and its blood came forth and fell upon the ground. Then a rocket struck it. It turned, it leaped.
There came a booming, crunching sound as it fell upon the vehicle identified as car number one and lay there.
Tanner hit the brakes, turned, and headed back.
Car number three came up beside it and parked. Tanfler did the same.
He jumped down from the cab and crossed to the Smashed car. He had the rifle in his hands, and he put six rounds into the creature's head before he approached the car.
The door had come open, and it hung from a single hinge, the bottom one.
Inside, Tanner could see the two men sprawled, and there was some blood on the dashboard and the seat.
The other two drivers came up beside him and stared within. Then the shorter of the two crawled inside and listened for the heartbeat and the pulse and felt for breathing.
"Mike's dead," he called out, "but Greg's starting to come around."
A wet spot that began at the car's rear end spread and continued to spread, and the smell of gasoline filled the air.
Tanner took out a cigarette, thought better of it, and replaced it in the pack. He could hear the gurgle of the huge gas tanks as they emptied themselves upon the ground.
The man who stood at Tanner's side said, "I never saw anything like it. . . . I've seen pictures, but… I never saw anything like it . . ."
"I have," said Tanner, and then the other driver emerged from the wreck, partly supporting the man he'd referred to as Greg.
The man called out, "Greg's all right. He just hit his head on the dash."
The man who stood at Tanner's side said, "You can take him, Hell. He can back you up when he's
William W. Johnstone, J. A. Johnstone