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preserve him from death. The place would be surrounded; the doors were useless. Suddenly, he remembered the Revolutionary War cellars upon which the house was built. If he could get into those, there were countless outlets to other places on the mountain.
    The Hound fired three pins.
    Ti slammed down on his mobility sphere speed controls, streaked into the hall, through the cellar door and down the steps (there for the convenience of his legged guests). He crossed the Tri-D room and went into the shooting range, slamming the heavy door behind him. It was monstrously thick, resurrected from the Tory cellars. It was a munitions storehouse door, plated in lead. Even the Hound would require some time to break that down.
    He floated along the left wall where the cellars lay behind the thin skin of his house, stretching far back into the mountain.
    After the first four or five, which were man-made, the caves were rough and fortified. When he reached the end of the room, he used his servos to rip loose the half-round that filled in the corners of the plasti-wood paneling. Metal fingers gripped round that paneling, he proceeded to pry it away from the wall beams. He looked through, seconds later, into the cool darkness of the Tory cellars.
    Behind, the Hound struck the leaded door, hard.
    Unable to squeeze between the beams, Ti shifted his grav-plates so he lay on his side, then moved ball-first through the gap and into the darkness. Once inside, he shifted to vertical position and sent his servos back to restore the panel as best they could. It might confuse the demon machine for a few minutes, though it could not be a completely successful ruse. The Hound would be after him soon enough.
    Through the partition, he heard the door to the shooting range give; then it crashed inward to admit the Hound.
    He moved forward slowly, letting his eye adjust to the lack of light. Soon he could distinguish the outlines of fallen beams and broken tables, of rotted and shattered chairs, a few stretches of shelving, that had once held ammunition but which were now bowed and warped away from the walls and covered with ugly lumps of fungus. He moved into the second cellar room.
    Behind him the Hound ripped loose the wall panel he had balanced in place, the sound echoing frantically in the cul-de-sacs of the Tory chambers. Light from the shooting range dispelled the gloom. The Hound came quickly after Ti moved toward the third cellar at top speed. He slammed his shoulder stump into a half-fallen beam, but he kept moving, his hatred and his fear denying the pain his nerves insisted was there. The Hound came faster.
    When he reached the entrance to the fifth cellar, Timothy found nature had conspired against him. There had been a cave-in, and the beams and rocks of the ceiling had collapsed to effectively bar his escape. With the Hound at his neck, there was no time to break through.
    He turned on his pursuer. Its sensors gleamed in the dim light, thirty feet away. It fired three pins…
    He moved aside as he saw its intent. The darts studded the rubble wall behind him, where they quivered like arrows. He sent his servos to an overhead beam lying in the Hound's path and had them worry its tenuous connections with the rotting ceiling. Just as the Hound passed beneath, the beam tore loose and crashed into it. The only effect was a momentary deflection in the machine's course. The Hound swerved, bobbled, recovered in only moments and swept closer, firing another three pins.
    All three missed. Ti was surprised, for he had not had time to take, evasive action—and Hounds were not known for sloppy marksmanship.
    The Hound fired three more; again, they all missed.
    Ti abruptly realized he was turning them aside with his psionic power! The second time, he had been more conscious of his effort. Now he stood with his back to the collapsed ceiling, waiting the next attack. It fired, and the darts spun away to either side. Over the next several minutes, he