He should have foreseen this--not that it would have done any good if he had. The beetle's fuel supply had been drunk up by the spider now towering over them; and the beetle's engine, even idling at minimum consumption, had used up what little remained in the system, and had stopped. And it was as if Dworn's own lifeblood had been drained and his own heart had stopped beating. Qanya was still watching him blankly. She said, "Can't you start it again?" Dworn was jolted by the realization that she genuinely didn't understand that he _was_ dead--that there was no way of restarting an engine once stopped. Until now he had supposed that all races were the same in that respect; but evidently spiders were different. In fact, now he remembered that, when they had entered the spider-vehicle, the girl had pushed a button that apparently started the engine. Spiders, then, died and came to life again every day--a startling notion. But the beetles--Among the thoughts that tumbled disjointedly through Dworn's head in this awful moment was a clear vision of the night, five years ago, when his machine-existence had begun: when, in the horde's encampment by the sea a thousand miles from here, the beetle's last seam had been welded, and its engine set going with the appropriate ritual of birth.... The sixteen-year-old boy's heart had beaten high and proudly, in tune with the heart of steel and fire that had begun to throb at that moment. And the life expectancy of the two was measured with the same measure, the life of flesh and that of metal indissolubly entwined.... He mumbled dazedly, "I'm dead, do you hear? Dead!" There was a sudden howling in the sky. Flashing overhead, as the two stood momentarily petrified, went a shrieking flight of half a dozen winged shapes--stubby vanes slanting back from vicious noses, they hurtled low over the desert and vanished swiftly into the distance, dust-devils dancing across the ground in the whirling wind of their passage. Dworn stared after them, and his eyes narrowed. A new and desperate resolve had begun shaping itself in his mind. Of the things he had meant to do in life, it was no use thinking any more of rejoining his people. He was dead to them, for sure--not even a beetle any more, but only what was left of one, a ghost.... But a holy duty, stronger than death, remained to him; his father was still unrevenged. What he could do against a foe so powerful as those who had just passed over, he had no idea--but perhaps a ghost could accomplish what a living man might well deem impossible. He motioned Qanya peremptorily toward the waiting spider-machine. "Come on. We're taking your machine, and we're going to find _them_!" For a moment she seemed to hesitate ... then she obeyed. If her face was paler than usual, Dworn failed to notice it. * * * * *