Parable of the Talents

ammunition on us. That gave Zahra some relief.

Then we had a look around, and we decided that one of the intruders was much too close to Zahra—and creeping closer. He could have been trying to get away, but he wasn't None of them were. We made sure the targets we had iden­tified were, in fact, targets, and not our own people. Once we were sure, we pointed them out to the truck and let it open up on them. Along with the truck's ability to 'see' in the dark via infrared, ambient light, or radar, it also has very good 'hearing,' and an incorrectly designated sense of 'smell.' This last is based on spectroscopic analysis rather than on actual smelling, but it is a kind of chemical analysis over a distance. It could be used on anything that emitted or reflected electromagnetic radiation—light—of some kind.

And the truck had plenty of memory. It could, and had, recorded all that it could of each of us—our voices, hand and foot prints, retinal prints, body sounds, and our general shapes in several positions to help it recognize us and not shoot us.

When the truck began shooting, I left the forward moni­tors to Harry. I didn't need to see anything that might make me useless, and the truck didn't need any more help from me. Once we were between Zahra and the attackers, I checked Zahra on an aft screen. She was alive and still at her station. Most of her body was concealed within the depression and behind the stone shelter that was intended to shield her. Some distance away, Gray Mora was still at his station and still alive. He wasn't involved in this, and his duty was to hold his position and guard the other most likely approach to Acorn. It had taken a while for us to learn not to be dis­tracted by people who might rattle the front door while their friends slipped in through the back.

The intruder nearest to Zahra was dead. According to the truck, he was no longer changing the chemistry of the air in his immediate vicinity in a way that indicated breathing, and he wasn't moving. Once the truck was stopped, its ability to detect motion was as good as its hearing. Put the two to­gether and we could detect breathing and heartbeat—or their absence. We've tried to trick it—fool it into mistaking one of us playing dead for an actual corpse—and we've never been able to. That's comforting.

'All right,' Harry said, looking up from his screen. 'How's Zee?'

'Alive,' I told him. 'Are all the shooters down?'

'Down and dead, all five of them.' He drew a deep breath. 'Bankole. le's go pick up Zahra.'

'Has anyone given Gray an all-clear?' I asked.

'I have,' Bankole answered. 'You know, I've got the next watch. In another hour, I would have relieved Zahra.'

'For the rest of the night,' I said, 'whoever's on duty should watch from the truck. Whoever these guys are, they might have friends.'

Bankole nodded.

He stopped us as close to Zahra's watch station as the truck could get. We all took one more look around, then Harry opened the door. Before we could call her, Zahra darted from cover and jumped into the truck. She was bleed­ing from the left side of her face and neck, and that took me by surprise. At once, I felt pain in my own face and neck, but managed not to react. Habit. Harry grabbed Zahra and yelled for Bankole.

'I'm okay,' Zahra said. 'I just got hit by broken rock when those guys were shooting. There was rock flying everywhere.'

I went up to take Bankole's place, and he went back to check on her. I'm a pretty decent driver now, so I got us back to the houses. 'I'll take what's left of Zahra's watch,' I said. 'Your watch, too, Bankole. I think you're going to be busy.'

'Watch from the truck!' Bankole ordered as though I hadn't just made the same suggestion myself.

'Of course.'

'Whatever happened to the two people those gunmen were chasing?' Zahra asked.

We all looked at her.

'They were staggering toward Acorn,' she said. 'They couldn't have gotten far. I didn't shoot them. They were al­ready hurt.'

This was the first we knew of the running pair. Zahra thought they were both wounded, and both men. Yet we hadn't spotted them. Of course, we hadn't looked back to­ward Acorn for more intruders. I hadn't even used the aft screens to do that. Stupid of me.

We looked around Acorn now, and found the usual signs of life—plenty of heat and some sound from the houses. The people were no doubt watching, but in the middle of the night, they wouldn't come rushing out until they got an all-clear from us. The older kids would be keeping an eye on the younger ones, and the adults would be watching us. No one was showing a light