He pushed down on the accelerator, and the cars behind him swung far out to the sides to avoid the cloudsthat he raised. His radio crackled, and he heard a faintvoice but could not make out its words.

He blew his horn and rolled ahead even faster. Theother vehicles kept pace.

He drove for an hour and a half before he saw the endof the ash and the beginning of clean sand up ahead.

Within five minutes, he was moving across desert oncemore, and he checked his compass and bore slightly tothe west Cars one and three followed, speeding up tomatch his new pace, and he drove with one hand and atea corned beef sandwich.

When morning came, many hours later, he took a pill tokeep himself alert and listened to the screaming of thewind. The sun rose up like molten silver to his right, anda third of the sky grew amber and was laced with finelines like cobwebs. The desert was topaz beneath it, andthe brown curtain of dust that hung continuously at hisback, pierced only by the eight shafts of the other cars'lights, took on a pinkish tone as the sun grew a brightred corona and the shadows fled into the west. Hedimmed his lights as he passed an orange cactus shapedlike a toadstool and perhaps fifty feet in diameter.

Giant bats fled south, and far ahead he saw a widewaterfall descending from the heavens. It was gone bythe time he reached the damp sand of that place, but adead shark lay to his left, and there was seaweed, seaweed, seaweed, fish and driftwood all about.

The sky pinked over from east to west and remainedthat color. He gulped a bottle of ice water and felt it gointo his stomach. He passed more cacti, and a pair ofcoyotes sat at the base of one and watched him drive by.They seemed to be laughing. Their tongues were very red.As the sun brightened, he dimmed the screen. Hesmoked, and he found a button that produced music. Heswore at the soft, stringy sounds that filled the cabin, buthe didn't turn them on.

He checked the radiation level outside, and it was onlya little above normal. The last time he had passed thisway, it had been considerably higher.

He passed several wrecked vehicles such as his own.He ran across another plain of silicon, and in the middlewas a huge crater which he skirted. The pinkness in thesky faded and faded and faded, and a bluish tone cameto replace it. The dark lines were still there, and occasionally one widened into a black river as it flowed awayinto the east. At noon, one such river partly eclipsed thesun for a period of eleven minutes. With its departure,there came a brief dust storm, and Tanner turned on theradar and his lights. He knew there was a chasm somewhere ahead, and when he came to it he bore to the leftand ran along its edge for close to two miles before itnarrowed and vanished. The other vehicles followed, andTanner took his bearings from the compass once more.The dust had subsided with the brief wind, and even withthe screen dimmed Tanner had to don his dark gogglesagainst the glare of reflected sunlight from the facetedfield he now negotiated.

He passed towering formations which seemed to bequartz. He had never stopped to investigate them in thepast, and he had no desire to do it now. The spectrumdanced at their bases, and patches of such light occurredfor some distance about them.

Speeding away from the crater, he came again uponsand, clean, brown, white dun and red. There were morecacti, and huge dunes lay all about him. The sky continued to change, until it was as blue as a baby's eyes.Tanner hummed along with the music for a time, andthen 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 filledwith cacti and it raced toward him, its beaded body brightwith many colors beneath the sun, its dark, dark eyes unblinking as it bounded forward on its lizard-fast legs, sablefountains rising behind its upheld tail that was wide as asail and pointed like a tent.He couldn't use the rockets because it was coming infrom the side.

He opened up with his fifty-calibers and spread his"wings" and stamped the accelerator to the floor. As itneared, he sent forth a cloud of fire in its direction. Bythen, the other cars were firing, too.

It swung its tail and opened and closed its Jaws, and itsblood came forth and fell upon the ground. Then a rocketstruck it. It turned; it leaped.

There came a booming, crunching sound as it fell uponthe 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. Tanner did the same.

He jumped down from the cab and crossed to thesmashed car. He had the rifle in his hands and he put six rounds into the creature's head before he approached thecar.

The door had come open, and it hung from a singlehinge, the bottom one.

Inside, Tanner could see the two men sprawled, andthere was some blood upon the dashboard and the seat.

The other two drivers came up beside him and staredwithin. Then the shorter of the two crawled inside andlistened for the heartbeat and the pulse and felt forbreathing.

"Mike's dead," he called out, "but Greg's starting tocome around."

A wet spot that began at the car's rear and spread andcontinued to spread, and the smell of gasoline filled theair.

Tanner took out a cigarette, thought better of it andreplaced it in the pack. He could hear the gurgle of thehuge gas tanks as they emptied themselves upon theground.

The man who stood at Tanner's side said, "I never sawanything like it. ... I've seen pictures, but—I never sawanything like it. ..."

"I have," said Tanner, and then the other driveremerged from the wreck, partly supporting the man he'dreferred to as Greg.

The man called out, "Greg's all right. He just hit hishead on the dash."

The man who stood at Tanner's side said, "You cantake him, Hell. He can back you up when he's feelingbetter," and Tanner shrugged and turned his back on thescene and lit a cigarette.

"I don't think you should do—" the man began, andTanner blew smoke in his face. He turned to regard thetwo approaching men and saw that Greg was dark-eyedand deeply tanned. Part Indian, possibly. His skin seemedsmooth, save for a couple pockmarks beneath his righteye, .and his cheekbones were high and his hair verydark. He was as big as Tanner, which was six-two, thoughnot quite so heavy. He was dressed in overalls; and hiscarriage, now that he had had a few deep breaths of air,became very erect, and he moved with a quick, gracefulstride.

"We'll have to bury Mike," the short man said.

*'I hate to lose the time," said his companion, "but—"and then Tanner flipped his cigarette and threw himselfto the ground as it landed in the pool at the rear of thecar.

There was an explosion, flames, then more explosions.Tanner heard the rockets as they tore off toward the east,inscribing dark furrows in the hot afternoon's air. Theammo for the fifty-calibers exploded, and the hand grenades went off, and Tanner burrowed deeper and deeperinto the sand, covering his head and blocking his ears. - As soon as things grew quiet, he grabbed for the rifle.But they were already coming at him, and he saw themuzzle of a pistol. He raised his hands slowly and stood.

"Why the goddamn hell did you do a stupid thing likethat?" said the other driver, the man who held the pistol.

Tanner smiled. "Now we don't have to bury him," hesaid. "Cremation's just as good, and it's already over."

"You could have killed us all, if those guns or thoserocket launchers had been aimed this way!"

'They weren't. I looked."

"The flying metal could've—Oh ... I see. Pick up yourdamn rifle, buddy, and keep it pointed at the ground. Ejectthe rounds it's still got in it and put 'em in your pocket."