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"Cadma
"Shit. Not until we get that fence fixed. Are they coming toward us?"
"Not yet—"
"Let us know. Hairy, get that damn fence taken care of. Move!"
"Slave driver—"
There were things out there, humping through the darkness.
A flash of movement near the fence. A tongue of flame licked out, caught the grendel in mid-charge. Coated with jellied gasoline, it bolted off into the ravaged fields, chased its tail in diminishing circles. Finally it lay on its side, jaws mindlessly snapping at its own smoldering limbs. Its hungry siblings ringed it, crawled closer, waiting patiently for the fire to die.
Harry fussed with continuity meters. "Weld there," he said. Mits Kokubun's torch flared briefly. "And there."
"You might get on with it," Greg said.
"God damn it, I'm doing all I can—"
"Sorry, Mits, didn't mean you to hear—"
"Shut up." Cadma
"They're moving in," Stu said. "Cadma
"Got it," Hairy whispered. "Done!"
"Then let's get the hell out of here. Move away from the fence.
Everybody clear?" He touched the comcard. "Activate outer fence."
"What about the i
"Leave it on. Gimme the speakers. HEAR THIS, BOTH FENCES ARE
ACTIVATED. TOUCH ‘EM AND DIE.
"Okay, now move. Greg, you're point man. Watch to the front. Carlos, you're watching our backs. Stay alert. Avalon needs all the lerts it can get. Mits, don't look at me, look off to the right! Now move."
Cadma
Greg's rifle spat once beside him. "Another one. Got him."
"Her," Cadma
It couldn't last. Half an hour. Give me that. Half an hour.
He got twenty minutes.
Cadma
"Thousands of them!" Greg was shouting. The searchlight jittered wildly. Black shapes darted over the bodies piled at the break. The light swung. Twenty meters to the left was another pile of still smoking bodies. Grendels came over that.
"South side. Fence is broken on south side."
"Break on the west side."
"The outer fence is shorted. No power left in the outer fence. All the circuit breakers have popped."
The searchlights swung through no-man's-land between the fences. Grendels swarmed there. Mines detonated. Pillars of fire rose from cans of buried kerosene. Rifles fired wildly into the melee.
No pattern. They come. They avoid each other, they'll attack the same target, but they don't cooperate. No strategy—
If you' re outnumbered bad enough, strategy doesn't matter. Who said that? My tac officer at the Point, or some ancient Trojan?
There were arcs from the i
"Stu. Time to do your stuff," Cadma
"Okay, but this is it for kerosene. And I'm at three-quarter charge."
"Charge you'll get. The outer fence isn't drawing power any more. Now
GO before we all do. Outer fence is gone. Protect the i
"Roger."
The Skeeter rose into view. Stu must have lifted the instant he heard
Cadma
Once again the Skeeter whipped around the i
"FLARES," Cadma
The fires leaped up. Grendels tore at each other, ran from the flame, leaped at the fence; the ground worked with grendels. And gradually the arcing at the fence stopped.
"Cadma
"Marty." It was a different voice. It took Cadma
They said more to each other, as if Cadma
Cadma
"Stu."
"Yeah?" Stu sounded sleepy again.
"Better start shuttling people out. Women and wounded first. Get ‘em up to the Bluff."
"Cad—you sure? You've held this long—"
"I've held this long, and Marty isn't about to sleep or relax or anything else. I want that Minerva out of here. It's one less damn thing to worry about."
"Okay, buddy. Can't even say I'm sorry."
"He will be," Jill said.
"Uh?" Cadma
"No picnic at the Bluff. We can't hold them here, with the fences and minefields and power for the Skeeters. No picnic at the Bluff."
"Yeah. You don't need to tell everybody."
"I won't." She went back to the searchlight.
The Skeeter took off five minutes later.
Jill Ralston bit her lip, fighting through the pain. Her eyes were huge and frightened as Cadma
Cadma
"What's my assignment once I get to the Bluff?"
"Have Jerry take care of that arm. Get some rest if you can. You're going to need it. By that time I'll be up there too."
"Don't be long," she said, settling back into the Skeeter seat, voice already becoming drowsy.
Cadma
"Roger."
The autogyro's rotors whipped dust around him. It rose and peeled away.
"Precious cargo, amigo," Carlos said from behind him.
"One day you're going to sneak up on me and I'll shoot you. Precious.
Should she have been on Geographic?"
"No, no, she is not pregnant yet—"
"I see."
"But I did rescue her from the ridge."
"And heroes get their rewards." When her arm heals. If it heals. And if it doesn't, old Carlos may be the best medicine she'll ever find.
"Quiet."
"Too quiet. But I like it."
"Enough meat for all, I think," Carlos said. "They fight and they feed, but they prefer not to feed on each other."
"Son of a bitch. I think you've got it," Cadma
"I do not know. Sometimes it seems they do. But Cadma
"Not as we think of talking."
"Hah. Amigo, if you are willing to believe them telepathic—" "No, not telepathic. But—hell, Carlos, I don't know what I mean.
Let's walk around the perimeter."
"You put me in charge here. Recall?"
"Oh. All right, I'll go alone."
The view was much the same everywhere. The outer fence was gone, but the i
Greg was doing stretches, transferring his gun from one hand to the other for weight. "Quiet," he said without taking his eyes from the grendel-infested wilderness. "Maybe they don't make deals with each other, but they do stir each other up."