Engines Of God

Maggie's pulser was fading, going red.

The things came on relentlessly.

The fear that they were not going to get out was begi

The dead, smoking shells continued to pile up. Hutch thought she detected some reluctance in the animals trying to breach the rising barrier, but they were incessantly pushed forward by pressure from behind. She found, increasingly, she could expand her field of fire, and attack the rear ranks. The zone of smoldering meat around them began to act as a shield.

She took a moment to reduce power.

Black smoke was getting into her eyes. She killed two more, and spared one that lurched crazily away from her and ran into a tree.

"We've got to run for it," said George. "Before they regroup."

"I'm in favor," said Hutch. "How do we manage it?"

"The bushes." He pointed to the side. He was shouting, to be heard over the din. Most of the creatures were on the trail, front and rear. "Punch a hole through the bushes," he said.

Hutch nodded.

"Everybody hear that?" called George.

Hutch turned toward Janet and Frank. "Can you guys manage on your own? Until we get clear?"

Carson looked at Janet.

"/ can hop," she said. "Let's go."

Hutch wasted no time. She swung her pulser toward the shrubbery George had indicated and burned the hole. Several crabs were moving back there, and she killed one while George held the rear. The bushes were thick, and she feared they might bog down in them. Protecting her eyes, she tried to ease the path for Janet. Once, twice, she stopped and drove off attackers.

But by God they were moving again.

Minutes later, they came out on a grassy hillside.

"Where''s George?" said Maggie, looking behind them.

Hutch opened a cha

"I'm fine," he said. "I'll be right along."

"What are you doing?"

"Hutch," he said, in a tone she had never heard him use before, "keep going. Get to the wall. I'll meet you there."

"No!" she howled. "No heroes. We need you here."

"I'll be there, dammit. Frank, will you talk to her?" And he signed off.

"He's right," Carson said.

"I'm going back for him—"

"If you do, we're all dead. His only chance is for MS to get to high ground. Now, come on—"

Charred grass and crab-parts crunched underfoot. George followed Maggie, but the crabs came too quickly. He turned and fired. There was no point in his hurrying, because he could go no faster than the people in front of him.

The attack slowed. A few individuals charged, but for the most part, they seemed to understand where the limits of his field of effective fire lay, and they remained outside that range. He backed through the bushes.

They kept pace. And he could hear them on both sides.

He fought down an urge to break and run. He listened for pulsers ahead, and was encouraged to hear only the sounds of people clumping through forest.

In whatever dim perceptions they had, the brachyids understood and avoided the pulser. They did not charge him, at least not in large numbers. They had learned. He needed to use that fact to buy time.

He didn't dare move too quickly. Didn't want to come up on his companions before they'd gained the safety of the wall. So he stopped occasionally, and, when the creatures approached, sometimes singly, sometimes several abreast in their pseudo-military formations, he turned back on them, and drove them off.

Hutch's frantic call u

The possibilities for ambush were everywhere. But no sudden rush came, no charge from the flank, no surprises. They merely stayed with him. And that was okay. If they were targeting him, they weren't chasing the others. And fast as they were, he was quicker. As long as he didn't have to carry anyone.

He plunged into high grass, too high for him to see them directly, but he could see the stalks moving. He kept going until he came out onto rocky terrain. Where he could see. Where they'd make easy targets.

Let Hutch and the others get as far away as they could.

"Where's the wall?" asked Carson.

They'd reached the top of the slope. Maybe another half klick. "Ten minutes," Hutch said. And, to Janet: "You okay?"

Janet and Carson were limping along as best they could, supported by Hutch and Maggie. "Yeah. I'm fine."

Hutch would have kept George on the circuit, but she had her hands full with her injured comrades, and she didn't want to distract him. But it was hard to keep back the tears.

Carson was quiet. His forehead was cool, and his eyes looked clear. When she tried to talk to him, he only urged her not to stop moving. "I can keep up with you," he said.

They followed their own trail through cut thickets, watching for the foliage to open on their left and give them a view of the wall. They had to be dose now.

Without warning, Janet collapsed. Hutch caught her, lowered her gently to the ground. "Break," Hutch said. "Take a minute."

Carson did not sit. He hobbled to a tree, and leaned against it.

Janet was pale and feverish. Drenched with sweat. Hutch activated her commlink. "George?"

"Here, Hutch."

"Please come. We need you."

George signed off and committed the misjudgment that cost him his life. He had succeeded in buying adequate time, and might have disengaged and rejoined his friends within a few minutes. But the crustacean army lined up behind him was too tempting a target. He returned to the tactic that had been working so successfully. Thinking to thin out his pursuers, he turned on them, and walked the pulser beam through their ranks. It was red now, failing quickly. But it was enough.

They scattered, making no effort to come after him. And they burned and died as they scuttled away. He pursued with singleminded thoroughness, killing everything that moved. Fires ignited, and the shrieks of the brachyids filled the twilight.

But when he turned back, the ground before him was moving. He played his beam across the new targets. It did not stop them, and he had to concentrate its power on a single animal to kill it.

They advanced deliberately in that sidewise gait, and the scalpels were erect. To his rear, the fire was building. No escape that way.

High on the dark hill, he glimpsed his comrades' lamp.

It looked very far away.

He plunged through an opening in the shrubbery. And they were waiting for him.