"Why didn't you get me up right away?"

"You needed the sleep, and there was nothing you could do but gettense and nervous."

"Okay, you're probably right. Tell me about the raid."

"Six vehicles, proceeding westward, were apparently ambushed by anundetermined number of wild cars sometimes last night. The PatrolCopter was reporting it from above the scene and I listened in. Allthe vehicles were stripped and drained and their brains were smashed,and their passengers were all apparently killed too. There were nosigns of movement."

"How far is it now?"

"Another two or three minutes."

The windshields came clear once more, and Murdock stared as farahead through the night as the powerful lamps could cut.

"I see something," he said, after a few moments.

"This is the place," said Jenny, and she began to slow down.

They drew up beside the ravaged cars. His seat belt unstrappedand the door sprang open on his side.

"Circle around, Jenny," he said, "and look for heat tracks. Iwon't be long."

The door slammed and Jenny moved away from him. He snapped on hispocket torch and moved toward the wrecked vehicles.

The Plain was like a sand-strewn dance floorчhard andgrittyчbeneath his feet. There were many skid-marks, and aspaghetti-work of tire tracks lay all about the area.

A dead man sat behind the wheel of the first car. His neck wasobviously broken. The smashed watch on his wrist said 2:24. Therewere three personsчtwo women and a young manчlying about forty feetaway. They had been run down as they tried to flee from theirassaulted vehicles.

Murdock moved on, inspected the others. All six cars wereupright. Most of the damage was to their bodies. The tires andwheels had been removed from all of them, as well as essentialportions of their engines; the gas tanks stood open, siphoned empty;the spare tires were gone from the sprung trunks. There were noliving passengers.

Jenny pulled up beside him and her door opened.

"Sam," she said, "pull the brain leads on that blue car, the thirdone back. It's still drawing some energy from an ancillary battery,and I can hear it broadcasting."

"Okay."

Murdock went back and tore the leads free. He returned to Jennyand climbed into the driver's seat.

"Did you find anything?"

"Some traces, heading northwest."

"Follow them."

The door slammed and Jenny turned in that direction.

They drove for about five minutes in silence. Then Jenny said"There were eight cars in that convoy."

"What?"

"I just heard it on the news. Apparently two of the carscommunicated with the wild ones on an off-band. They threw in withthem. They gave away their location and turned on the others at thetime of the attack."

"What about their passengers?"

"They probably monoed them before they joined the pack."

Murdock lit a cigarette, his hands shaking.

"Jenny, what makes a car run wild?" he asked. "Never knowing whenit will get its next fuelingчor being sure of finding spare parts forits auto-repair unit? Why do they do it?"

"I do not know, Sam. I have never thought about it."

"Ten years ago the Devil Car, their leader, killed my brother in araid on his Gas Fortress," said Murdock, "and I've hunted that blackCaddy ever since. I've searched for it form the air and I've searchedon foot. I've used other cars. I've carried heat trackers andmissiles. I even laid mines. But always it's been too fast or toosmart or too strong for me. Then I had you built."

"I knew you hated it very much. I always wondered why," Jennysaid.

Murdock drew on his cigarette.

"I had you specially programmed and armored and armed to be thetoughest, fastest, smartest thing on wheels, Jenny. You're theScarlet Lady. You're the one car can take the Caddy and his wholepack. You've got fangs and claws of the kind they've never metbefore. This time I'm going to get them."

"You could have stayed home, Sam, and let me do the hunting."

"No. I know I could have, but I want to be there. I want to givethe orders, to press some of the buttons myself, to watch that DevilCar burn away to a metal skeleton. How many people, how many cars hasit smashed? We've lost count. I've got to get it, Jenny!"

"I'll find it for you, Sam."

They sped on, at around two hundred miles per hour.

"How's the fuel look, Jenny?"

"Plenty there, and I have not yet drawn upon the auxiliary tanks.Do not worry."

"чThe track is getting stronger," she added.

"Good. How's the weapons system?"

"Red light, all around. Ready to go."

Murdock snubbed out his cigarette and lit another.

"...Some of them carry dead people strapped inside," said Murdock,"so they'll look like decent cars with passengers. The black Caddydoes it all the time, and it changes them pretty regularly. It keepsits interior refrigeratedчso they'll last."

"You know a lot about it, Sam."

"It fooled my brother with phoney passengers and phoney plates.Hot him to open his Gas Fortress to it that way. Then the whole packattacked. It's painted itself red and green and blue and white, ondifferent occasions, but it always goes back to black, sooner orlater. It doesn't like yellow or brown or two-tone. I've a list ofalmost every phoney plate it's ever used. It's even driven the bigfreeways right into towns and fueled up at regular gas stops. Theyoften get its number as it tears away from them, just as the attendantgoes up on the driver's side for his money. It can fake dozens ofhuman voices. They can never catch it afterwards, though, becauseit's souped itself up too well. It always makes it back here to thePlain and loses them. It's even raided used car lotsч"

Jenny turned sharply in her course.

"Sam! The trail is quite strong now. _This_ way! It goes off inthe direction of those mountains."

"Follow!" said Murdock.

For a long time then Murdock was silent. The first inklings ofmorning began in the east. The pale morning star was a whitethumbtack on a blueboard behind them. They began to climb a gentlyslope.

"Get it, Jenny. Go get it," urged Murdock.

"I think we will," she said.

The angle of the slope increased. Jenny slowed her pace to matchthe terrain, which was becoming somewhat bumpy. "What the matter?"asked Murdock.

"It's harder going here," she said, "also, the trail is gettingmore difficult to follow."

"Why's that?"

"There is still a lot of background radiation in these parts," shetold him, "and it is throwing off my tracking system."

"Keep trying, Jenny."

"The track seems to go straight toward the mountains."

"Follow it, follow it!"

They slowed some more.

"I am all fouled up now, Sam," she said. "I have just lost thetrail."

"It must have a stronghold somewhere around hereчa cave orsomething like thatчwhere it can be sheltered overhead. It's the onlyway it could have escaped aerial detection all these years."

"What should I do?"

"Go as far forward as you can and scan for low openings in therock. Be wary. Be ready to attack in an instant."

They climbed into the low foothills. Jenny's aerial rose highinto the air, and the moths of steel cheesecloth unfolded their wingsand danced and spun about it, bright there in the morning light.

"Nothing yet," said Jenny, "and we can't go much further."

"Then we'll cruise along the length of it and keep scanning."

"To the right or to the left?"

"I don't know. Which way would you go it you were a renegade caron the lam?"

"I do not know."

"Pick one. It doesn't matter."

"To the right, then," she said, and they turned in that direction.

After half an hour the night was dropping away behind the mountains.To his right morning was exploding at the far end of the Plains,fracturing the sky into all the colors of autumn trees. Murdock drewa squeeze bottle of hot coffee, of the kind spacers had once used,from beneath the dashboard.