'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 unnerved him. He'd been able to hear her both on the link and on the wind. They were still very close. Damn—
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.
24
Beta Pacifica III. Tuesday, April 12; one hour after sunset
They saw the flames below, in the dark.
'He'll be okay,' said Carson.
Hutch hesitated, looking back. The entire world squeezed down to the flickering light. She wanted to talk to him again, reassure herself. But she remembered Henry's anger: Where were you when we were trying to get a few answers? All you could contribute was to hang on the other end of that damned commlink and try to panic everybody.
Miserably, supporting Janet, she set off again. How different everything looked now. The beam from her lamp fell across a tree that had been split by lightning. 'I remember this,' said Maggie. 'We're close—'
Moments later, a scream ripped through the night. It rang across the trees, vibrated in the still air, erupted into a series of short cries. Hutch called out to him and turned back.
But Janet anticipated the move. 'No! You can't help him.' She grabbed her and held on. 'My God, you can't help him, Hutch—'
Janet was considerably stronger, but she could not have restrained her more than a few seconds had Carson not gotten there quickly. They fell in a pile.
'There's nothing you can do,' he said.
She screamed.
'You'll make it for nothing.' It was Maggie, looking down at her.
'Easy for you,' said Hutch, hating the woman. 'When other people die, you're always safely away!'
And the tears came.
The wall looked bright and safe in the glow of the lamp.
Get to the upper level. Hutch's vision had blurred, and she was close to hysteria. 'Hold on,' Janet told her. 'We need you.'
The lower strip, the portion they had thought of as resembling a roadway, emerged from the hillside to their right. Halfway across the glade, it rose vertically almost two meters. Not much under ordinary circumstances. Bri tonight was another matter.
It was a difficult climb with only one foot available. But Carson, supported by Maggie from below, and pulled by Hutch, and perhaps encouraged by the whisper of moving grass, negotiated it, although not without losing more blood. Once he was up, however, Janet became an easy proposition.
Hutch did a quick survey out across the top of the wall to assure herself there would be no surprises. Satisfied, she sat down and got out the medikit. 'Let's have another look at everybody,' she said in a flat voice.
Janet appeared to be going into shock. Hutch got her legs up, propping them on a mound of earth, removed
