Starling Junior accounted for Porky. The fire-spitting dragon and the very mean Radleps within were making things plenty hot for the riders. It had to be brought down and as yet no one had connected the sudden destruction of the other machines with a built-in charge of high explosive.

Starling Junior found himself a few square feet of open ground, knelt down, and faced Porky head on. He took his last arrow from his quiver and set it in the bowstring. Then he raised the bow and pulled back mightily. Porky was a hundred and fifty, maybe two hundred yards off. Fire was spewing from the flame thrower in clouds brighter than that morning's sun. For a second, Staring eyed the slit in the armor on the driver's side of the vehicle; then he let his arrow fly.

He seemed to be able to follow it with his eyes, his gaze alone keeping it on track. It passed cleanly through the black gap. There was so much noise— screams, roaring, whining engines, gunshot—rising off the battlefield that Starling Junior couldn't hear his arrow detonate. He figured it must have, because a second or two after he saw it vanish into the beast the giant fuel tank connected to the flame thrower and the charge that Lucky had placed in the bowels of the machine exploded. It blew big. In a matter of moments, Porky was a smoke-belching memory.

The destruction of the last machine seemed to take the wind out of the sails of the soldiers of the alliance. Some just surrendered to their fates, gave up the will to fight, and hoped that death would come cleanly. Others redoubled their efforts not because they wanted to win anymore, but because they wanted to hack an escape route through the men around them hell bent on killing them.

Bonner looked up from the business of slaughtering radleps with his knife in one hand and his shotgun in another and saw a jeep driving away over the packed lake bed. No one had had to tell him who the passenger was. Bonner was on foot, having left Wiggy in his automobile, still standing up behind the machine gun firing away. It dawned on Bonner suddenly that he hadn't heard the heavy cadences of the big gun recently. He found Wiggy dead at his post. The rest of Bonner's car was draped with the bodies of friends and foes alike.

He kicked a few corpses off the car and slid behind the wheel. The seats were sticky with the blood of dead men. He hit the gas and took off.

Starling Junior saw him go and followed on a bike that lay on its side on the ground.

Bonner's snorting war machine carried him away from the battle zone in a matter of seconds. Suddenly it was a fall day, the sun shining, the air brisk. The only sound was the usual roar of the twin upswept exhaust pipes behind Bonner's head and the thrumming of the tires on the brown earth.

The black dot on the horizon, Leatherman's jeep, threw up a dust trail. Bonner's eyes fixed on him and with his foot to the floor settled in for the chase.

This time, he determined, Leatherman was not going to get away.

He was unaware that he was being followed.

Leatherman looked over his shoulder, saw a rider a mile or two behind him, and knew instantly who it was.

"Not my fucking day," he said to Chilly.

Chilly glanced over his shoulder. "I'll take care of him, boss."

Chilly stood on the brakes and the jeep skidded to a stop. He slammed the jeep into neutral and let the engine idle. From the little arsenal he kept in the rear of the jeep he selected a rifle, set the sight, and rested the weapon on the rollbar. He slipped off the safety, put a round in the chamber, and looked down the barrel.

A puff of smoke rose from the Outrider's car and less than a second later a slug tore into the middle of Chilly's brain. He died so fast it was like snapping off a light. He tumbled back from his firing position and smacked his head heavily on the windshield.

"Chilly!" screamed Leatherman.

He scrabbled over the body of his driver and unceremoniously dumped him out onto the ground. Leatherman fell behind the wheel of the jeep, revved it once, and engaged the clutch. But his hands couldn't grip the stiff gear shift. The knife blades scratched over the knob and stripped some black paint from the shaft, but he couldn't move it.

"Fuck! Fuck!" he shrieked in panic. Bonner's car grew bigger with the passing of every second.

He grabbed for a weapon in the back seat, but all he could do was hold the beautiful, oiled, cleaned guns between his bladed paws. Tears sprung into his eyes. He was helpless.

"I am gonna die," he said, staring back at Bonner as he approached. For a second, the old Leatherman asserted itself.

"No, I'm not," he muttered. "The fuck I am. I was always smarter than Bonner. I'll get him close, then I'll carve him up . . ."

Leatherman leaned back in his seat and relaxed. He smiled his evil smile at the morning. He looked his old self. He was looking forward to his final confrontation with his hated rival, his old friend.

Bonner cruised up and pulled to within twenty feet of Leather's jeep.

"Pretty good shooting," said Leatherman, "you hitting Chilly like that. You were always good."

Bonner couldn't quite believe that he had him. Had him cold. The funny thing was that now he couldn't summon up the hate that he had fought but that had fueled him for so long.

"Helluva morning, huh. Who'da thought that a bunch of ragged fucks like you would end up beating the alliance."

"Amazing," said Bonner, raising the Hi Standard automatic. He held it out at arm's length pointed to a spot in the middle of Leatherman's face.

"Great," said Leatherman, "shoot a defenseless guy. That's Bonner, all right. That's the old fuckin' Outrider. Lemme tell you something, man, you shoot me down like a dog and all that fine-sounding stuff you been talking about for all these years, well that won't mean shit."

Bonner cocked the gun.

"It's gonna make you feel bad," said Leatherman, like a mother cautioning a child against smoking cigars. "You kill me this way and you won't be any better than the rest of us. And you ain't gonna be able to live with yourself after that. Know what I mean?"

Bonner paused. "What do you suggest?"

Leatherman smiled. It worked. Now he had the fuck. "Just what you said to me once, once when things were a little different. Fair fight. You got a couple of blades. I got some myself. You and me. Best man wins, winner take all and all that shit. Whaddya say. If you win, you won on your terms.

If I win—then, hey, it wasn't meant to be, know what I'm saying?"

"Yeah, I know what you're saying."

"Good." Leatherman grinned. "Deal?"

Bonner hesitated.

"C'mon Bonner, what do you say?"

"I say, fuck that," said Bonner and fired.

A big, round, ragged, dirty blood cavern opened up in the place where Leatherman's nose had been once. A liberal portion of his brain splattered across the back seat of the jeep as the rear of Leatherman's skull split open to allow the bullet out of his head. He toppled sideways.

Bonner felt nothing. He pushed the car into gear and made a wide circle on the lake bed and headed back towards Chicago.

He cruised to a halt in front of Starling Junior a mile or so back towards the city.

"Didja get him?" asked the boy, putting both feet flat on the ground to support the idling bike.

"Yeah," said Bonner.

"Good," said Starling, "your turn."

"Really," said Bonner impassively.

"You killed my father."

"No I didn't," said Bonner.

"The Habs say that he got trapped in a firefight and you didn't stop to get him out of it."

"Luck of the draw," said Bonner. This kid would never know the sorrow Bonner felt at Starling's death; he would never know the shame of having left him to his fate. But Bonner didn't feel like explaining it. The kid had made up his mind. It couldn't be changed.

Starling Junior raised his gun. "Ready to die, Bonner?"

Bonner shrugged. Good question. Then he decided: no, not really. He floored the accelerator and smashed Starling off his bike, sending the kid to a sudden and crunchy death under the wheels of Bonner's machine.

He skirted the battlefield where a little skirmishing and a lot of looting of the dead was going on. He drove straight into Chicago and found the girl on Lakeshore Drive watching with some other noncom-batants the dying embers of the battle. Relief flooded through her face and she kissed him warmly. "I'm so glad you're alive," she said.

"Me too," he said, "get in."

Obediently she climbed into the car. He started out onto the lake again.

"Where are we going?" she said.

Bonner looked at the battlefield and then back at the city. "Someplace else," he said.

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