The young man bowed his head to Blade. «I am sorry, Mazda, that I took from you the honor of being first. It was rightly-«
«Never mind honors now, Zeron,» said Blade sharply. «Let's get to work.»
As Blade spoke the turret's turning swung the ray-tube toward them and over them. Clinging to the tube was a young woman. She was pounding wedges into the opening in the turret from which the tube jutted. As the turret's turning carried her out of sight, hammers sounded forward. The two men with the most dangerous assignment were at work, driving heavy plugs into the holes from which the tentacles emerged. If they didn't work fast, they would be the first to die.
Blade took his own advice and pulled a wedge from his pouch. He slid it into the gap between the turret's base and the ring on which it revolved, pushed on it hard, then grabbed the hammer and swung it with both bands. Whang! Whang! Whang! Each blow sent a tingling through Blade's hands and arms and a vibration through the metal under his feet.
Whang! Whang! Whang! Zeron was doing the same thing. The machines might have enormous power stored in them. But how much of that power could they feed to the motors that turned the turrets, extended the tentacles, maneuvered the legs? If that power was not enough to overcome the resistance of a dozen or so teksin wedges swiftly driven into place by fighters of the people, it would be the end for one of the machines' prime weapons.
From underneath the machine came more hammering. Someone was driving wedges into the joints of one of the legs. A machine could not get up and fly away unless all four legs were retracted. Now someone was busily at work making sure that at least one leg on this machine would never retract.
Blade rammed in a second wedge and went to work with the hammer. Then a third. Then a fourth. By the time the fourth wedge was in place he was streaming with sweat. His bare chest and arms were as wet as if he had just climbed out of the lake. But the turret was as thoroughly immobilized as if it had been seated in concrete.
The young woman on the tube sprang lightly to the ground. Blade recognized Chars. As she did so there was a whooosh and flickering orange yellow flame suddenly enveloped the tube. Greasy black smoke streamed up into the sky.
Chara smiled at Blade. «Burns good, doesn't it?» She had wrapped a layer of cloth soaked in teksin oil around the raytube, then set it on fire. The burning cloth raised the temperature inside the tube high enough to ruin the sensitive electronic equipment.
Something went pfffffssssshsssssttttt! — like the biggest of all cats-from underneath the machine. The machine shivered, then sagged down at one corner. The man who had been working on the legs scrambled hastily out from under. His face was black with smoke and his hair and eyebrows a good deal skimpier than they had been before. His teeth flashed white as he grinned.
«It tried to pull up the leg. But I think something went wrong with the little machine for the leg. Am I right, Mazda?»
«It seems like it.»
Blade hung his hammer on his belt and climbed on top of the turret to get a better view. He nearly shouted out loud as he saw a tentacle flashing around the other machine they had attacked. Then he saw that the turret was motionless, the ray-tube a smoking, half-melted mass, and not one but two legs jammed and buckled. One of the tentacles had pushed out its wedge, but that was all. The six members of the attacking team were standing back at a safe distance, watching the deadly tentacle clutch at nothing but empty air.
A hundred yards away stood the third machine of the group, now moving slowly around on its legs in a small circle. The tentacles were still retracted but the turret was swinging quickly back and forth through a half-circle that faced the two captured machines. Occasionally the third machine sounded its siren.
Apparently the machine couldn't make up its programmed mind what was happening and what it should do about it. There was no reason to give the machine the time it needed. Blade motioned his third team forward at a run. As they passed down between the two captured machines, Zeron sprang down to join them. Apparently the young man hadn't had enough fighting for one day!
The third team was halfway to the third machine when it suddenly exploded into action. All four legs snapped up into its belly with a loud clang. At the same moment the machine leaped into the air, wobbling slightly. The turret swung to aim the ray-tube at the approaching people.
Purple flame darted from the rising machine. Blade heard men and women alike screaming in surprise and terror. The memories went too deep-always before the purple ray had brought death wherever it touched. For a moment the seven running figures were lost in the purple glare. Then it faded, and the seven ran on, not missing a step. The screams turned into shouts and cheers.
They reached the spot where the machine had been and looked upward to where it hovered some thirty feet above them. If it would just drop a bit lower-
The tentacles! There they were, flicking out of the front of the machine. Blade opened his mouth to shout at the seven to scatter, but they were doing that before he could even take in a deep breath. Against a war machine armed, alert, and out of reach, what else was there to do? There hadn't been any explosives ready for the expedition.
The machine seemed to stoop toward the ground, like a hawk sighting a mouse. Two tentacles flashed through the air. Their tips curled around the waist and legs of a running man. It was Zeron, the same Zeron who had wanted to see more fighting, Zeron who had been too slow or too bold to get beyond the machine's reach:
The tentacles tightened. Zeron screamed, a long, rasping, utterly horrible scream, a raw-throated shrieking rejection of a world that was letting this happen to him and of the pain that seemed to be tearing him apart.
A moment later he was torn apart. One tentacle snapped one way, one the other. With a gruesome craaaak Zeron's body tore apart at the waist in a shower of blood and fragments of bone and internal organs. The two tentacles rose high into the air, as if brandishing their horrid trophies. Then they unclasped and the two halves of Zeron's body fell down to land with small puffs of dust.
That machine was going on the hunt, thought Blade. It was time for all of them to scatter, and fast.
Before he could give any orders, a second war machine swept into sight from behind the towers of Miros. It was a hundred feet off the ground and moving at well over a hundred miles an hour.
This time people did start scattering, as fast as their legs would cover ground and before Blade could even think of giving an order. Blade himself leaped down off the turret and started running. There was absolutely nothing else to do, except run so far and fast that the machines would lose interest. Sooner or later they would. They always did. But how many of the fighters of the expedition would still be alive by that time?
Then Blade stopped almost in mid-stride, to turn and stare. The second machine was not plunging down on the scattering fugitives. Instead it was circling the first one. The first one seemed to be standing still in the air, its tentacles drooping listlessly.
Then the second machine stood on end and leaped for the sky. It dwindled with a rush and roar of air into something small and gleaming in the sky nearly a mile above. Then it plunged down on the first machine. It must have been doing more than three hundred miles an hour when it plummeted out of the sky and smashed into the first machine.